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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH FOR THE 
PLAIN MAN 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/psychicalresearc01king 



Psychical Research for 
the Plain Man 



BY 

S. M. KINGSFORD 



LONDON 

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD- 

New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

1950 



«A 



FOREWORD 

PROFESSOR HENRI BERGSON, in his Presi- 
•*■ dential address to the Society for Psychical 
Research in 191 3, after discussing the differences 
between scientific, historical and judicial certainty, 
stated :--" I am led to believe in telepathy, just as I 
believe in the defeat of the Invincible Armada. My 
belief is not the mathematical certainty that the 
demonstration of Pythagoras' theorem gives me, it is 
not the physical certainty that I have of the law of the 
fall of bodies, but it is at least all the certainty that 
we obtain in a historical or judicial matter." 

Whilst it is obvious that scientific questions, and to 
a lesser extent historical questions, must be left to 
experts ; yet the ultimate decision of Guilty, or Not 
Guilty, in a trial for murder rest with twelve jurymen, 
and not with the expert judge ; though the summing 
up of the judge is intended to instruct the jury, and 
influence their verdict. 

It has unfortunately happened in the matter of 
evidence for supernormal occurrences, with which is 
involved the hope of life after death, that the judge 
and the jury, the expert and the man in the street, 
seldom or never come into contact. For nearly forty 
years the Society for Psychical Research acting as 
judge, has been summing up in an impartial manner 
the evidence for and against supernormal occurrences; 
but the jury, the general public, knows practically 
nothing about either the evidence or the summing up. 

The general public derives its ideas either from 
paragraphs in newspapers, which mostly turn the 
whole thing into ridicule, without argument ; or from 
books of 'ghost stories' written by people who treat 
the existence of beings they call ' Elementals,' as an 
established fact, and mention chats with Charlotte 
Bronte as everyday occurrences, 



J 



vi. FOREWORD 

It is true that a certain number of most valuable 
books have been written by various individual 
members of the S.P.R. ; but these writers, being 
learned men, are inclined to emphasize abstract 
theories which the general public is hardly able to 
grasp, rather than to bring forward the evidence for, 
and details of concrete facts. 

I am an unlearned woman, and my object in 
writing this book has been to produce in an intel- 
ligible and interesting form the evidence that seems to 
prove that supernormal events have occurred, together 
with comments on the credibility or otherwise of the 
evidence by S.P.R. experts. I have made but few 
comments myself on the various cases, which I have 
quoted verbatim wherever possible : I have preferred 
to leave my readers to draw their own conclusions 
from the evidence I put before them. But I ask that 
they should endeavour to consider the matter in an 
unbiased and judicial spirit ; accepting or rejecting 
alleged facts according to the weight of evidence 
given by witnesses who appear to be worthy of 
credence, or the reverse. 

I desire to render sincere thanks to the Council of 
the Society for Psychical Research for their kind 
permission to make extracts from the Proceedings 
and Journal. My hope is that my humble effort to 
act as interpreter between the learned Society and 
the plain man in the street may cause the latter to 
appreciate the work of the former better than he has 
done hitherto. 

I also wish to acknowledge gratefully the per- 
mission accorded by Messrs. Longmans Green & Co. 
to insert an extract from The Making of Religion , by 
the late Mr. Andrew Lang (see page 54) : and 
I heartily thank Mrs. Salter and Miss Newton for 
their kind help. 

S. M. KINGSFORD. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP, 



PAGE. 

I. Telepathy j 

II. Clairvoyance 20 

III. Crystal-Gazing 4 3 

IV. Mediums 53 

V. Trance Mediums g2 

VI. Automatic Writing and Cross Corres- 
pondences . . . . , .112 
VII. Premonitions and Death Warnings . 147 

VIII. Hallucinations 

IX. Haunted Localities .... 
X. Poltergeists 



. 172 
. 200 



2 33 



s 



PSYCHIC RESEARCH 



CHAPTER I 

TELEPATHY 






The word Telepathy was coined by Mr. F. W. H. 
Myers, who defined its meaning to be 'the com- 
munication of impressions of any kind from one 
mind to another, independently of the recognised I / 
channels of sense.' The literal meaning of the word 
Telepathy is feeling at a distance, and Mr. Myers 
noted, {Human Personality, Glossary), " the distance 
between agent and percipient need in fact only be 
such as to prevent the operation of whatever known 
modes of perception are not excluded by the other 
conditions of the case. Telepathy may thus exist 
between two men in the same room as truly as 
between one man in England and another in 
Australia, or between one man still living on earth, 
and another man long since departed." 

Most people have themselves had telepathic 
experiences in a greater or less degree : those who 
live together know how often the same idea, for no 
apparent reason, occurs to them both at once. If 
when this happens you investigate, you will often 
find that one of the people in question derived the 
idea from an orderly sequence of thought ; whilst 
to the other it came suddenly and unaccountably. 

A 



2 TELEPATHY 

In that case the former was, in psychical language 
the agent, and the latter the percipient. Or it may 
be you suddenly feel anxiety concerning a friend 
hundreds or even thousands of miles away ; and 
subsequently discover that about the same time that 
friend, being in trouble or emotion of some sort, 
was thinking of you. 

These and similar incidents happen so frequently 
that very few people would try to argue that they 
are due merely to chance coincidence, but would be 
inclined to share the opinion of Dr. Johnson. When 
Boswell " introduced the subject of second sight, 
and other mysterious manifestations, and suggested 
the fulfilment might happen by chance, Johnson 
said ' Yes, sir, but they have happened so often that 
mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous.' " 

Though telepathy in common parlance denotes 
thought-transference between human minds or 
brains, there seems some probability that it is in 
reality the universal language of all animals, the use 
of which in the case of homo sapiens has been con- 
siderably weakened by his invention of articulate 
language. Sir Oliver Lodge has pointed out in 
"Raymond" that the sounds of spoken language, 
and the signs of written language, differing as they 
do amongst various races, are themselves artificial 
and unnatural. The acquirement of these artificial 
means of communication has probably weakened, 
and to a great extent destroyed, man's natural power 
of direct thought-transference, which there is some 
reason to think is far stronger in savages than in 
civilized men. As regards animals other than man, 
the unanimity in action of a flock of starlings or a 
pack of wolves, to say nothing of the understanding 
often established between individual animals without 
exchange of a sound, are inexplicable except on the 



TELEPATHY 3 

hypothesis of some kind of telepathic communication. 
There is also some definite evidence that thought- 
transference between men and animals occasionally, 
at any rate, takes place. 

It is an absolute necessity to commence any 
treatise on psychical research with the subject of 
telepathy, because it would be difficult to weigh 
judicially the evidence for and against the possible 
source of origin of the various types of psychic 
phenomena, without adequate knowledge of the 
proved scope of telepathy, and at least a glimpse of 
its unproved possibilities. It is probable that 
telepathy in some degree is a factor in every super- 
normal occurrence ; indeed many people are of 
opinion that telepathy from living persons is the only 
factor, and adequately accounts for all the super- 
normal sounds and visions, as well as mental im- 
pressions, which have ever been experienced. And 
those who believe that some at least of these 
phenomena are derived from disembodied or un- 
embodied spirits, would probably allow that 
telepathy may be the means by which these com- 
municate with their friends still in the flesh. 

Unlike most other psychic phenomena, telepathy 
admits of experimental investigation ; in this chapter 
I propose to deal exclusively with a selection from 
various series of experiments, leaving spontaneous 
cases to be given under the heads of subsequent 
chapters. But here a difficulty arises : experimental 
investigations, though important, are apt to be 
extremely dull to read about. For this reason a 
friend of mine with considerable literary experience, 
knowing that this book is intended to be read by the 
general public, earnestly urged me not to make 
experimental telepathy the subject of my first 
chapter ; she obviously feared that if I did, it 



4 TELEPATHY 

would also be the last chapter for the majority of 
readers. 

Fortunately, however, one series of telepathic 
experiments has recently been published which is 
really as interesting as an exciting game, For 
nearly six years, that is to say from the Spring of 
1910 to the end of 1915, Professor Gilbert Murray 
and his family have conducted a series of experi- 
ments of which a careful record has been kept. 
Professor Murray gave most interesting details 
concerning some of these experiments, in his 
Presidential Address to S.P.R. in July 191 5, since 
published in Proceedings Vol. XXIX. And the 
same issue of Proceedings contains an article by the 
late Mrs. A. W. Verrall, dealing with the whole 
series, at some few of which she had been present 
and had taken part. 

Professor Murray explained, " The method 
followed is this : I go out of the room and of 
course out of earshot. Someone in the room, 
generally my eldest daughter, thinks of a scene or 
an incident or anything she likes, and says it aloud. 
It is written down, and I am called. I come in, 
usually take my daughter's hand, and then, if I have 
luck, describe in detail what she thought of. The 
least disturbance of our customary method, change 
of time or place, presence of strangers, controversy, 
and especially noise, is apt to make things go wrong. 
I become myself somewhat over-sensitive and 
irritable, though not, I believe, to a noticeable degree. 
— There are many cases of correct pictures. E.g 
Subject set : ' I think of grandfather at the Harrow 
and Winchester cricket match, dropping hot cigar- 
ash on Miss Thompson's parasol.' My guess 
(verbatim) : ' Why, this is grandfather. He's at a 
match—- why, it's absurd : he seems to be dropping 



TELEPATHY 5 

ashes on a lady's parasol.' . . . Much more 
often, however, the information comes not through 
any particular sense but through what I may call 
a sort of indeterminate sense of quality or atmos- 
phere. For instance, I almost always, if I am going 
right, get first a feeling of the country in which the 
scene or incident is set. I say, ' This is Russian,' 
' This is Italian,' ' This seems to be tropical,' or the 
like. Also I am apt to know whether a thing comes 
from a book or from real life, and the taste of the 
book is apt to be very strong. One would never 
confuse Thackeray and Tolstoy, for instance. A 
rather instructive case and one in which I do think 
I was rather clever, referred to a scene in a book 
which I had not read. I give it more at length. 

Subject set : A scene in a story by Strindberg. 
A man and woman in a lighthouse, the man lying 
fallen on the floor, and the woman bending over 
him, looking at him and hoping that he is dead. 

My guess : ' A horrid atmosphere, full of hatred 
and discomfort. A book, not real life. A book I 
have not read. Not Russian, not Italian, but foreign. 
I cannot get it. There is a round tower, a man and 
woman in a round tower ; but it is not Maeterlinck. 
Not like him. I should guess it was Strindberg. 
The woman is bending over him and hating him, 
hoping he is dead.' 

Another Strindberg scene, also from a book I 
had not read, raises a rather interesting point. The 
subject set was an old, cross, poor, disappointed 
schoolmaster eating crabs for lunch at a restaurant, 
and insisting on having female crabs. I got the 
atmosphere, the man, the lunch in the restaurant on 
crabs, and thought I had finished, when my daughter 
said, 'What kind of crabs?' I felt rather impatient 
and said : ' Oh, Lord, I don't know. Female crabs.' 



6 TELEPATHY 

That is, the response to the question came auto- 
matically, with no preparation, while I thought I 
could not give it. I may add that I had never 
before heard of there being any inequality between 
the sexes among crabs, regarded as food." 

Mrs. Verrall described the experiments at which 
she was present, as follows : — " February 18, 1914. 
Yesterday, February 17, between tea and dinner, I 
was present at a series of experiments in thought- 
transference, in which Professor Murray acted as 
percipient and his daughter, Mrs. Toynbee, as agent. 
There were present, in the study, Lady Mary 
Murray, Miss Blomfield (who took notes), Mr. 
Arnold Toynbee (who left after the first or 
second experiment), and myself, besides the two 
principals. 

Professor Murray went out of the room, and the 
door was shut. Mrs. Toynbee then decided on a 
subject to transfer, a.nd described it in a low voice ; 
Miss Blomfield recorded it, and no other word was 
spoken. (Once Lady Mary Murray asked if the note 
was made). Then Lady Mary Murray opened the 
door, in silence, and Professor Murray came in, held 
Mrs. Toynbee's hand, sometimes standing, sometimes 
sitting, and proceeded to describe his impressions. . . 

So far as I observed, and I observed with care, 
Professor Murray never looked at Mrs. Toynbee after 
he had taken her hand, nor did she look at him. 
Any indications derived from contact must be 
confined to suggestions — of course unintentional — of 
encouragement or discouragement, and no mere 
encouragement could, as far as yesterday's experi- 
ments were concerned, account for the success. The 
details are as follows : 

I. Subject. Mrs. Toynbee (agent) : ' Celia New- 
bolt under a gourd tree at Smyrna.' (Miss Celia 



TELEPATHY 7 

Newbolt is the daughter of Sir Henry Newbolt, the 
poet). 

Professor Murray : ' Modern Greek of some kind- 
sort of Asia Minor place — a tree and woman sitting 
under it— a particular tree— girl sitting under it— she 
does not belong to the place— she is English — 
something to do with a poet— can't be Mrs. Kipling- 
no, it's a girl— rather like one of the Oliviers— (I) 
don't think I can get her.' In this case the subject 
was imagined, not remembered. 

II. Subject. Mrs. Toynbee (agent): 'Mr. S 

playing Badminton at the Badminton Club at 
Bogota ; Lord Murray watching, and ladies watching, 
one with a fan.' 

Professor Murray : ' This is something to do with 
your voyage to Panama— it's South America— it's 
people in white playing a game— it's your villain 
S — — . He's playing a game— the word Bogota is 
coming to my mind — I think it is at a games-club.' 

Mrs. Toynbee : ' What is the game ? ' 

Professor Murray : ' I think I am only guessing. 
I think the game is Badminton, and the Master of 
Elibank (Lord Murray) is there.' Here too the scene 
is purely imaginary. 

Professor Murray then suggested that I should 
choose an incident and tell Mrs. Toynbee. But after 
he had left the room, at an unspoken suggestion, by 
sign, of Lady Mary Murray's, we decided to pursue 
the usual plan. 

Subject. Mrs. Toynbee (agent) : ' I'll think of the 
Master of Trinity— (to me) your Master walking 
along the Backs and a gardener with a wheelbarrrow 
sweeping up dead leaves and getting out of his way.' 

Professor Murray : ' I don't think this is Mrs. 
Verrall's— it's the Master of Trinity walking in a 
garden — and a gardener sweeping leaves,' 



8 TELEPATHY 

Mrs. Toynbee : ' Any special place ? ' 

Professor Murray : ' The Backs.' 

It was arranged that I should think of the next 
subject, and act directly as agent. 

Subject. Mrs. Verrall (agent): 'Jean Valjean 
walking in the dark wood and taking the handle of 
the pail from the little child (Cosette).' 

Professor Murray : ' I had a faint impression of 
Silverlocks finding the bears' house in the 
wood.' 

Even in this comparative failure there are two 
points of contact — the wood and the girl child. My 
subject was from Hugo's Les Miserables" 

Mrs. Verrall made a statistical examination of all 
the experiments recorded during five years : — " The 
total number of recorded experiments is 505. On 
six occasions where the subject is noted there is no 
entry of a description, and these I count as Failures. 
So also I do ten cases where only the word ' Failure ' 
is noted. In sixty-eight cases no impression was 
obtained, and for statistical purposes these are, of 
course > also Failures ; though there is a great dis- 
tinction, as regards our estimate of the phenomena, 
between a wrong guess and a failure to have any 
impression. These may be called Negative and the 
others Positive Failures. The whole number of 
Failures of every kind is 197, sixty-eight of these 
being due to absence of any impression. The 
number of Partial Successes is 141, and of Complete 
Successes 167. I have counted as Successes not 
only all cases where the complete incident is 
described, but also cases where what may be called 
the essential elements are given by the percipient, 
but of course opinions will differ as to what is 
essential." Mrs. Verrall then gives examples of 
Complete Successes, some of which have already 



TELEPATHY 9 

been noted ; also of three Partial Successes, as 
follows : — 

Subject : ' Miss Barbara Tchaikovsky visiting a 
political prisoner in the Peter and Paul prison.' 

Professor Murray : ' Tchaikovsky, but I can't see 
what he's doing. No, I've got it blurred. I've got 
it mixed up with Miss Tchaikovsky. I've got her 
knocking at a front door.' 

As the idea of prison, prisoner, is absent in the 
description, I have not counted this as a complete 
success. 

Subject. • Paul Sabatier walking with an alpenstock 
along a winding road in Savoy.' 

Professor Murray : ' A man like Mr Irving going 
up a mountain — it isn't Mr. Irving — it's a clergy- 
man with an alpenstock — I should say it was a 
foreign clergyman.' 

Here again, since the name 'Paul Sabatier' and 
the locality ' Savoy ' were not given, the success is 
counted only as Partial, though I think it will be 
admitted that the greater part of the desired 
impression was successfully transmitted. 

Subject: ' Alister and Malcolm McDonald running 
along the platform at Liverpool Street, and trying to 
catch the train just going out.' 

Professor Murray : ' Something to do with a 
railway station. I should say it was rather a crowd 
at a big railway station, and two little boys running 
along in the crowd. I should guess Basil.' Here 
again, though the picture of two little boys running 
in a railway station is correctly described, the name 
of the station is not given, and the boys are not 
identified. This therefore appears as Partial, and 
not as Success." 

Mrs Verrall then discusses " whether the ordinary 
senses, if we alloiv for special sensitiveness , are the 



io TELEPATHY 

agency for the transmission. The conditions of the 
experiment show clearly that the only sense we need 
consider is that of hearing." That is to say, though 
Professor Murray goes out of the room, and it is 
needless to say does not listen at the door, has he 
supernormal powers of hearing which enable him 
subconsciously to know what is said in a low voice 
inside the room ? 

In favour of this possibility it may be noted that 
when mistakes in names are made, the wrong name 
has occasionally a similarity in sound to the right 
one ; as Masefield for Mansfield ; Mrs. Carr for Mrs. 
Carlyle. But against this must be set instances 
where unspoken thoughts have been transmitted ; 
and also cases where Professor Murray adds details 
unknown to himself, but known to Mrs Toynbee, 
though she has not mentioned them in giving the 
subject. 

Subject : ' Belgian Baron getting out of a train at 
Savanarilla with us, and walking across the sandy 
track, and seeing the new train come in.' 

Professor Murray : ' Man getting out of a train and 
looking for something. I don't know if he's looking 
for another train to come. I think it is a sort of dry 
hot sort of place. I get him with a faint 
impression of a waxed moustache — a sort of foreign 
person — but I can't get more.' 

The Belgian Baron, never seen by Mr Murray, had 
a waxed moustache ; but it had not been mentioned 
by Mrs Toynbee. 

Subject. Mrs. Toynbee : ' I think of Mrs. F. 
sitting on the deck, and Grandfather opening the 
door for her.' 

Professor Murray : ' This is Grandfather. I think 
it is on a ship, and I think he is bowing and smiling 
to somebody — opening a door.' 



TELEPATHY n 

Mrs Toynbee : ' Can't you get the person ? ' 

Professor Murray : ' I first thought of the 
Captain, and afterwards of a lady. I get a feeling 
of a pink head dress.' Mrs. Toynbee: 'That is 
right.' 

Subject. Mrs. Toynbee : ' I think of that funny 
old Irishman called Dr. Hunt in the hotel at 
Jamaica. I'll think of the race where they wouldn't 
let him ride with his little gray mare.' 

Professor Murray: 'Tropics. It's — it must have 
something to do with Jamaica. I can't get it a bit 
clear. I feel as if it were a drunken Irish doctor 
talking with a brogue. I can't get it clear.' 

To this the contemporary note says that ' Mrs. 
Toynbee did not mention that he got drunk, but he 
did.'" 

Mrs. Verrall remarks that Professor Murray is 
much more often successful when a member of his 
own family acts as agent, than when anyone else 
does so ; and continues, ' Various explanations may 
be offered for this fact, and among them must 
certainly be reckoned the mental attitude of the 
agent. The topics chosen by the members of his 
family have a vividness and actuality, a picturesque- 
ness, a detail, and often an element of the fantastic 
which is lacking in the more sober selections made 
by visitors less acquainted perhaps with the 
conditions of previous success. For there is % no 
doubt that the fantastic and the unusual specially 
lends itself to the successful guessing of Professor 
Murray, so that future experimenters should think of 
schoolmasters eating female crabs, of actual persons 
replacing fictitious characters, and perhaps especially 
of Russian novels rather than of actual incidents.' 

Other 'guesses,' in varying degrees of success, are 
the following : — 



12 TELEPATHY 

Subject'. 'Mr. B. with a dog in the front Quad at 
New College.' 

Professor Murray : ' B. showing P. some old 
building in Rome — no, it's not in Rome, he's in the 
front Quad at New College, with something like a 
dancing bear.' 

Subject : ' Miss L. dragging her little dog up the 
hill at Alassio in the heat.' 

Professor Murray : ' I get the impression of people 
on the Riviera going up a hill. Is a dog in it?' 
('Yes') 'Road towards the gap at Alassio.' 

Subject-. 'Mr. H. throwing stones into a pond on 
Hampstead Heath.' 

Professor Murray : ' Not Denis and me throwing 
stones at a notice board ? Faint impression of 
throwing stones.' 

Subject : ' Mr. L. beating an egg at Siena.' 

Professor Murray : ' Kangaroos.' 

(One person present had been thinking that if she 
were choosing a subject she would give something 
like a kangaroo or a bear with a visiting book like 
the picture in Punch. Professor Murray said he had 
sheep, bears and kangaroos in his mind.) 

Subject : ' Sir Henry Lunn at the North Pole.' 

Professor Murray : ' Is it anything to do with the 
poll at an election ? A vague impression of a crowd 
waiting at the North Pole.' 

Subject: ' Mr. B. pulling a tin bath at the top of a 
staircase.' 

Professor Murray : ' This is Harold B. I thought 
he was looking in at a shop window, but now I can 
only get tin pans.' 

Subject: 'I shall think of the third S. brother 
eating sponge cake, and talking to the other S's grey 
dog.' 

Professor Murray : 'This smells to me like 



TELEPATHY 13 

Birmingham. It's the S. family — not Ernest. I 
rather think it's Hugh, but there are other S.'s about, 
and Hugh's eating' something — a sort of afternoon 
tea. It's not Hugh, it's another one I don't know. 
It's either Hugh or one I don't know.' 

Subject : — ' Mrs. X. driving in a taximeter towards 
Notre Dame and shouting to the cabman to stop, and 
he's deaf and doesn't hear.' 

Professor Murray : ' This is something French — 
Paris. I get an impression of Notre Dame 
and somebody driving towards it and the ear 
stopping or something — it's not clear, but I get 
Notre Dame. A rich stoutish elderly woman with 
rather a manner.' (This description applies to Mrs 
X.)" 

No other telepathic experiments have yet reached 
as high a measure of success as those of Professor 
Murray and his family ; but it must be borne in mind 
that they were conducted under the most favourable 
conditions ; the complete sympathy between agent 
and percipient being no doubt the principal factor 
towards success. But another point to be noted is 
that both agent and percipient were in a perfectly 
familiar environment, without any element of strange- 
ness or elaborate preparation. 

Another series of experiments, principally between 
Miss Verrall, (now Mrs. Salter), and Miss L. 
Tipping, was made during 191 3 and 1914, under 
strictly supervised conditions, in the rooms of the 
S.P.R. At the commencement of these experiments 
Miss Verrall (agent) and Miss Tipping (percipient) 
were not acquainted : after the experiments had been 
going on some weeks they met once and had five 
minutes' conversation, but did not meet again during 
the period covered by the experiments. Miss 
Verrall sat in one room under the supervision of 



i 4 TELEPATHY 

Miss Newton, Secretary to S.P.R. : Miss Tipping sat 
in another room under the supervision of Miss 
Johnson, Research Officer ; the two rooms being 
separated by a passage about 30 feet in length. 

Though this supervision was necessary to prevent 
any possibility of the accusation of collusion and 
fraud being made ; still it created an environment 
which was to some extent strained and unnatural, 
which must have militated against complete success. 
Nevertheless, in a great many instances Miss Tipping 
did get dim, and occasionally clear, intuitions as to 
what Miss Verrall was doing in the other room. 
Full particulars are to be found in S.P.R. Proceedings, 
Vol. XXVII. ; I will give one example here. 

Miss Verrall was concentrating her mind on 
making crochet lace, and found it necessary to count 
the stitches. Just before the experiment commenced 
the casual thought had gone through her mind that 
she would buy some cherries for dessert on her way 
home. 

Miss Tipping, sitting in the other room wrote 
down what ideas came to her, addressing herself to 
Miss Verrall, as follows : — " I have an impression of 
white flowers, lots of little bits of white, very soft in 
texture. You seem to move these fallen white things 
about, at least your fingers seem very busy. Then I 
see red colours, and small rounds this time, like 
this (she drew six cherries with stalks), I want to 
eat cherries. I keep wishing to taste fruit. Your 
hands seem to move about much. It's so queer, but 
I do want to count the things you are touching." 

Though this is not an exact description of Miss 
Verrall's employment, the points of similarity, 
particularly the desire to count which evidently 
puzzled Miss Tipping, can hardly be the result of 
chance coincidence. It is I think especially inter- 



TELEPATHY 15 

esting that the passing thought of cherries should 
have been transmitted with greater distinctness than 
the idea of crochet lace which Miss Verrall intended 
to transmit. 

The following experiments in thought-transference 
were conducted by Dr. S., a well-known physician of 
San Francisco, and his wife. Dr. S. thus describes 
the circumstances : — " I came to try the experiment 
this way : I read of a certain drummer who, when 
absent from home, made it a practice to sit at ten 
o'clock p.m., for about half an hour, his wife the 
same, and mentally communicate the news of the 
day to each other. . . As my wife was to go away 
from San Francisco last summer with a sick sister 
of hers, we decided to try the experiment. My wife 
has grown up in an atmosphere of scepticism, 
consequently she did not give the subject as much 
attention as I did, otherwise we might have had 
better results. . . We agreed to sit twenty minutes 
at ten o'clock p.m. In sending news, I fixed my 
mind strongly on the message : in receiving I made 
my mind as nearly blank as I could, excluding all 
thought. Everything I received came to me as a 
mental picture. Sometimes I would see things only 
partly, like half of a face. When I saw her arm with 
the poison oak, it came very clearly. I almost 
thought I could speak to her, but I never heard 
anything like noise." 

May 1 2th. Transmitted May 12th. Received. 
Mrs. S. 

Arrived safely. Pleasant Had a good trip. B. 

trip. B. feels fairly well, sleptwell. House squarely 

We have a nice place in built and plain ; porch 

an old-fashioned house. surrounded by trees ; not 

fronting the road ; rooms 



i6 



TELEPATHY 



May 13th. Trans. Dr. S. 
Theresa B. and her 
mother were here yester- 
day. Also Clare and 
Emma. Business some- 
what dull. W's house 
burned yesterday. 

May 14th. Tran. Dr. S. 
Nothing sent. 



very sunny. (All accurate. 
What follows was seen 
clairvoyantly apparently. 
ED.) Landlady wears 
sunbonnet with jacket of 
same. Little boy three 
years old. (Boy expected, 
but did not arrive till 
next day.) Fire in north 
east. (Fire occurred next 
night). 

May 13th. Received. 

I think Theresa B. was 
there or is coming. 
Something, I can't make 
out, about business. I 
think it is bad. 



May 14th. 

Forgot to keep 
appointed time. 



the 



May 15th. Trans. Dr. S. May 15th. Received. 

E. and R. went to park. Could get nothing 

Mrs. A. is angry. S. paid definite ; think you 

his bill. collected some money. 



May 1 6th. Trans. Mrs. S. 
Paid a visit to K.'s. B. 
feels quite well. 



May 1 6th. Received. 

You took a long walk. 
I see a young man with 
a revolver in his hand. 
(A young man shot a 
dog in the garden that 
day.) 



TELEPATHY 



17 



May 17th. Trans. Dr. S. 
Nothing sent ; business 
prevented. 



May 1 8th. Trans. Mrs. S. 
B. does not feel well at 
all. Went for medicine. 



May 19th. Trans. Dr. S. 
Case of D. will come off 
in the courts 29th. Busi- 
ness still quiet. Played 
whist. 



May 20th. Trans. Mrs. S. 
My clothes and shoes 
are all torn. I have 
poison oak on my arms. 
Hope it will not be bad. 



May 17th. Received. 

Could get nothing at 
all. Think you were 
out. 

May 1 8th. 

See a lot of wine casks 
and demi-johns. Some- 
thing about curtains. 
(Mrs. S. visited a large 
wine cellar on the 17th. 
The curtains in her room 
annoyed her very much. 
But nothing about either 
was consciously sent.) 

May 19th. Received. 

Think you had rain. 
You seem dissatisfied. 
You are telling me some- 
thing about D., I am 
sure. (It did rain, but 
the fact was not con- 
sciously sent.) 

May 20th. Received. 

You went out riding. 
I see you holding a shoe 
in your hand. You have 
poison oak on your right 
arm. B. is better. You 
want me to mail you the 
Bulletin and the Chronicle. 
(Mrs. S. did ride out. 
Poison oak was on right 
arm only. B. gained 



TELEPATHY 



May 2ist. 

Appointment forgotten. 



May 22nd. Trans. Mrs. S. 
Visited Springs. Very 
warm all day. I have a 
sick headache. 



May 23rd. Trans. Dr. S. 
Up all night. Very 
tired. Nothing new. 



three pounds. She was 
hoping for the Btilletin 
supplement only.) 

May 2 1 st. 

Not at home ; did not 
sit to receive. 

May 22nd. Received. 

It must be warm ; I see 
you fanning yourself, you 
were riding ; on a donkey 
I think. (She rode in a 
carriage but saw a donkey 
on her trip which amused 
her very much.) 

May 23rd. Received. 

You are . looking very 
cross and tired. 



It would be easy to fill a folio volume with well- 
attested incidents, of which the most reasonable 
explanation is that they were caused by telepathy. 
Mr. Podmore summed up the matter as follows : — 
"Separately, no doubt, each particular case is 
susceptible of more or less adequate explanation by 
some well known cause ; and in the last resort it 
would be unreasonable to stake the credit of any 
single witness, however eminent, against what Hume 
would call the uniform experience of mankind. But 
as a matter of fact the experience of mankind is not 
uniform in this matter ; and when we are forced by 
the mere accumulation of testimony to go on adding 
one strained and inadequate explanation to another, 
and to assume at last an epidemic of mis- 



TELEPATHY 19 

representation, perhaps even an organised conspiracy 
of falsehood, a point is at length reached in which 
the sum of improbabilities involved in the negation 
of thought-transference must outweigh the single 
improbability of a new mode of mental action." 
Mr. Podmore also quotes Professor C. Lloyd Morgan 
as having said that the evidence against telepathy 
"can only be rejected as a whole, by one who is 
prepared to repeat at his leisure, what David is 
reported to have said in his haste." 

As we shall find throughout this book, telepathy, 
whether from the living or from the departed, plays 
a very important part in all other supernormal 
phenomena. 

Mr. Myers wrote {Proceedings VI.) : — " I regard 
telepathy, not as a fact standing alone and self- 
sufficing, but as a first hint of discoveries which 
cannot be circumscribed, — a casually reached in- 
dication of some unknown scheme of things of which 
thought-transference, clairvoyance, apparitions at 
death, may be but subordinate effects, or incidental 
examples." 



CHAPTER II 

CLAIRVOYANCE 

"THE word clairvoyance is often used very loosely 
and with widely different meanings. In the present 
paper I intend to denote by it a faculty of acquiring 
supernormally, but not by reading the minds of 
persons present, a knowledge of facts such as we 
normally acquire by the use of our senses. I do not 
limit it, notwithstanding the derivation of the word, 
to knowledge which would normally be acquired by 
the sense of sight, nor do I limit it to a knowledge 
of present facts. A similar knowledge of past and, 
if necessary, of future facts may be included. 

One class of cases — often called clairvoyant by old 
writers — we shall exclude, namely, those in which 
the knowledge exhibited by the percipient is already 
in the mind of some person present. Experiment 
has proved that percipients will seem to themselves 
to see independently scenes which have no existence 
except in the mind of a person present, so that the 
impression if supernormal at all, must be due to 
thought-transference. A good instance of this is 
given in Phantasms of the Living (Vol. i, p. 96), 
where Mrs. W., hypnotised by Mr. G. A. Smith, and 
describing apparently clairvoyantly, a room unknown 
to her but known to Mr. Smith, described on the 



CLAIRVOYANCE 21 

table an open umbrella which had no existence 
except in Mr. Smith's imagination. . . . But though 
the evidential reason for dividing off these cases from 
clairvoyance proper is clear, I am not prepared to 
say that the line so drawn has much scientific value. 
It is undeniable that such evidence as we have of 
clairvoyant perception of things at a distance is often 
very much mixed up with evidence of similar per- 
ceptions possibly due to thought-transference from 
persons present, and this suggests the possibility that 
clairvoyant perception of distant scenes is facilitated 
when it can be led up to by thought-transference 
from those present. . . . It is very doubtful whether, 
by any definition that could be framed, we could 
mark off a class of phenomena having any common 
explanation peculiar to themselves." 

The above is taken from Mrs. Henry Sidgwick's 
article on the " Evidence for Clairvoyance," S.P.R. 
Pro. VII., and in the same article she also remarks: — 
" Experience seems to show that clairvoyants are 
often — generally perhaps — unable to distinguish true 
impressions from false ones. The scenes they seem 
to themselves to visit may be the work of their own 
imagination, or the verbal or mental suggestion of 
others, or may be veridical, without the clairvoyant 
perceiving any difference." 

The following case, though it is bare of the 
picturesque details some others afford, is I think of 
considerable value, as it is more or less vouched for 
as authentic by the report of a coroner's inquest. 

A newspaper published April 18, 1903, contained 
the following announcement : — "Two men lost their 
lives in the Severn at Bewdley on March 22, and it 
was not until Wednesday that the first body — that of 
Stephen Price — was found. At the inquest yesterday 
afternoon at Stourport, Thomas Butler, who found 



22 CLAIRVOYANCE 

the body, said it was owing to a dream the night 
before that he visited the spot where he found the 
body. It was six miles from the scene of the fatality. 
A verdict of ' Accidentally drowned ' was returned, 
the coroner remarking on the curious circumstance of 
the dream." 

At the request of the S.P.R. Colonel G. L. Le M. 
Taylor undertook to investigate the matter ; he 
found that Price had been seen to fall into the river, 
but the current was very strong, and the body had 
been carried out of sight before any attempt at rescue 
could be made. The Kidderminster local papers 
contained the following details of what transpired 
at the inquest. 

" Thomas Butler, of Beel-row, Stourport, labourer, 
said on Wednesday morning he went towards 
Shrawley Wood. On the previous evening he 
dreamt that he saw the body of a man on the top 
side of the Lincombe Weir. He went for a walk 
with a man, and told him that he had had the dream.. 
They went round Shrawley Wood and returned by 
Hampstall Hotel, and when just below Lincombe 
Weir he saw the body of a man in the water in the 
Weir cutting. He got a boat and called to John 
Oakley, clerk at the Lincombe Lock, who said that a 
policeman was at the lockhouse. Witness rowed the 
boat across the river, picked up P.C. Meaks, and took 
him to the spot where the body was. They put the 
body into the boat, and it was conveyed to the 
mortuary. 

" The Coroner : Are you in the habit of having 
these realistic dreams ? 

" Witness : No, sir. 

" The Coroner : You might be a useful man if you 
were. 

"Witness : Very likely, sir." 



CLAIRVOYANCE 23 

Colonel Taylor talked with several people who had 
personal knowledge of the circumstances ; and was 
told by one of them that the place where the body 
was found was, in his opinion, a most unlikely place 
for it to be. This seemed to preclude the probability 
of Butler having made merely a lucky guess. The 
landlord of the hotel which was Butler's ' house of 
call,' on being asked if Butler had related his dream 
before the finding of the body, replied, ' Oh, yes, he 
told me and several people in the morning before he 
found it, and declared his intention of looking about 
Lincombe on account of it.' It appeared however, 
that in his dream Butler had seen the body caught in 
a bush below Lincombe Weir ; whereas it was found 
caught in a bush above the Weir." 

I give the next case as summarized in the S.P.R. 
Journal as follows : — 

The second Part of the Proceedings of the American 
Society for Psychical Research contains an article by 
Professor William James discussing a striking case 
of clairvoyance reported to him by Dr. Harris 
Kennedy, a cousin of Mrs. James. The case occurred 
in 1898 and accounts were obtained within a few 
days of the occurrence, (but for some reason that 
does not appear, were not published till nine years 
later). They relate to the finding of the body of a 
drowned girl through impressions received in trance 
by a certain Mrs. Titus, a non- professional medium. 
The girl had disappeared from her home early on 
Monday morning, Oct. 31, 1898, having been last 
seen by a few people in the street leading to a bridge 
across a lake, and by one person on the bridge. 
Some 150 men were hunting for her in the woods 
and on the lake shore all that day, and during the 
next two days a diver searched the lake in vain for 
her body. Mrs. Titus lived in a village about four 



24 CLAIRVOYANCE 

and a half miles from the home of the girl, whom she 
did not know, though her husband worked in the 
same mill with the girl's sister. On the Sunday she 
told her husband that something awful was going to 
happen, and on Monday, just as he was leaving for 
the mill she said it had happened. At noon he told 
her that the sister had gone home — it was imagined 
because her mother was ill ; in the evening they 
heard that the girl was missing, and on Tuesday, 
Mrs. Titus talked about it and said she was in the 
lake, which was of course a natural guess to make. 

On Wednesday evening Mrs. Titus became en- 
tranced, and on being wakened by her husband said 
if he had let her alone she could have discovered by 
the morning where the girl was. That night she had 
two more trances, during which she told her husband 
that she saw the girl standing on a frost-covered log 
on the bridge, that her foot slipped and she fell 
backwards into the water, and that she was lying 
in a certain place by the bridge, head downwards 
between two logs, the body covered with mud and 
brush ; and one foot projecting with a new rubber 
shoe on. A curious point reported by Mr. Titus was, 
that when questioned about the girl she would answer, 
but apparently she did not hear him when he spoke 
to her of other things. 

In the morning Mr. Titus told his wife's experience 
to a friend of his, and to the foreman of the mill 
where he worked, (both of whom confirmed the 
account fully), and obtained leave from the latter 
to take his wife to the lake. After going to the 
bridge and identifying the place seen in her vision, 
Mrs. Titus went with her husband to the house of a 
mill-owner, Mr. Whitney, who ^id mainly organised 
the search for the body, and employed the 
diver. They told their story and persuaded Mr. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 25 

Whitney to return to the bridge with them, and 
order the diver to go down at the point indicated by 
Mrs. Titus. He did so and found the body just in 
the place, and position, described. The testimony 
of the diver, which as well as that of Mr. Whitney, 
is given in full detail, shows that the body was 
found at a depth of about eighteen feet in the water ; 
that the water was so dark that no one could see into 
it ; and that he himself could see nothing when in 
the water, but found the body entirely by feeling. 

The evidence for the facts of this case is unusually 
full and strong ; as to their supernormal character, 
the main question would seem to be how much 
information existed in the neighbourhood about the 
girl's doings, which might have furnished the material 
for Mrs. Titus's trance-impressions. It seems that 
there was a light frost that morning, and that the 
girl's footprints Were traced on to the bridge and up 
to a distance unrecorded upon it. This was known 
to all the town ; but that no definite clue was really 
afforded by these footprints was shown by the fact 
that the searchers who knew of them were nevertheless 
hunting the woods as well as the lake side, while the 
diver had searched along both sides of the bridge. 
There was every reason to believe that Mrs. Titus 
had not been to the place since the accident, nor for 
two or three years previously, so that it is difficult to 
suppose she could have had any normal means of form- 
ing a judgment as to the whereabouts of the body." 

A third case, which is again concerned with death 
by drowning, differs materially from the preceding ; 
the event taking place in Australia and the dreamer 
being in England. A letter from Mrs. Green, the 
percipient, to Miss Richardson, describing her ex- 
perience, was forwarded with other matter to the 
S.P.R. 



26 CLAIRVOYANCE 

" Newry, 21st. First month, 1885. 

Dear Friend, — In compliance with thy request, I 
give thee the particulars of my dream. I saw two 
respectably-dressed females driving along in a 
vehicle like a mineral water cart. Their horse 
stopped at a water to drink, but as there was no 
footing, he lost his balance, and in trying to recover 
it he plunged right in. With the shock, the women 
stood up and shouted for help, and their hats rose 
off their heads, and as they were going down I turned 
away crying, and saying, ' Was there no one at all to 
help them ? ' Upon which I awoke, and my husband 
asked me what was the matter. I related the above 
dream to him, and he asked me if I knew them. I 
said I did not, and thought I had never seen any of 
them. The impression of the dream and the trouble 
it brought me, was over me all day. I remarked to 
my son it was the anniversary of his birthday and 
my own also — the 10th of the First month, and this 
is why I remember the date. 

• The following Third month I got a letter and a 
newspaper from my brother in Australia, named 
Allen, letting me know the sad trouble which had 
befallen him in the loss, by drowning, of one of his 
daughters and her companion. Thou wilt see by the 
description given of it in the paper how the event 
corresponded with my dream. My niece was born 
in Australia, and I never saw her. Please return the 
paper at thy convenience. Considering that our 
night is their day, I must have been in sympathy 
with the sufferers at the time of the accident, on the 
10th of First Month, 1878." 

Extract from The Inglewood Advertser, Friday 
evening, January, n, 1878. "A dreadful accident 
occurred in the neighbourhood of Wedderburn, on 



CLAIRVOYANCE 27 

Wednesday last, resulting in the death of two women, 
named Lehey and Allen. It appears that the 
deceased were driving into Wedderburn in a spring 
cart from the direction of Kinypaniel, when they 
attempted to water their horse at a dam on the 
boundary of Torpichen Station. The dam was ten 
or twelve feet deep in one spot, and into this deep 
hole they must have inadvertently driven, for Mr. 
W. McKechnie, manager of Torpichen Station, upon 
going to the dam some hours afterwards, discovered 
the spring cart and horse under the water, and two 
women's hats floating on the surface. The dam was 
searched, and the bodies of the two women, clasped 
in each others' arms, recovered." 

Extract from evidence given at inquest. . Joseph 
John Allen, farmer, deposed : I identify one of the 
bodies as that of my sister. I saw her about 11 a.m. 
yesterday . . . The horse had broken away 
and I caught it for her. Mrs. Lehey and my sister 
met me when I caught the horse . . . They 
then took the horse and went to Mr. Clark's. 1 
did not see them afterwards alive. 

William McKechnie deposed : . About 

4 p.m. yesterday, I was riding by the dam when I 
observed the legs of a horse and the chest above 
water. 

From Mr. Green, Newry. 15th Second Month, 
1885. 

Dear Friend Edith Richardson. — In reference to 
the dream that my wife had of seeing two young 
women thrown out of a spring cart, by their horse 
stopping to drink out of some deep water, I remem- 
ber she was greatly distressed about it, and seemed 
to feel great sympathy with them. It occurred on 
the night of the 9th of January. The reason I can 



28 CLAIRVOYANCE 

remember the date so well is that the ioth was the 
anniversary of my wife's and our son's birthday. As 
the day advanced she seemed to get worse, and I 
advised her to go out for a drive; when she returned 
she told me she was no better, and also said she had 
told the driver not to go near water, lest some 
accident should befall, as she had had such a dreadful 
dream the night before, at the same time telling him 
the nature of it. As my wife's niece did not live with 
her father, he was not told of it until the next 
morning, which would be our evening of the ioth 
and which we think accounted for the increased 
trouble she felt in sympathy with him. Thos. 
Green." 

In the following case which is in my judgment 
too important to be omitted, a paid medium takes a 
leading part. I have, however, included it because, 
as will appear from the narrative, all possibility of 
fraud on the part of the medium seems excluded. 

Writing on March 23, 1891, Mrs. Davis stated 
that in March 1864 she was living at Natick, about 
17 miles from Boston, U.S.A.; and had as a 
neighbour a Mrs. Critcherson, who had several 
children, two being by a former deceased husband : 
these boys were Willie Mason, aged 15, and Joshua 
Mason aged 1 1 . The elder boy was employed at 
some Stores at Boston ; and one Friday afternoon 
returned home to see his mother ; as she was away, 
he and his younger brother went out together. The 
boys did not return, and though inquiries were made 
nothing could be heard of them. Mrs. Critcherson 
seems from the first to have had a strong impression 
that her boys were in the lake ; but no one else 
thought this at all probable, as they had not been 
seen near the lake, and in March there was nothing 



CLAIRVOYANCE 29 

to attract boys to the water. However, to satisfy the 
mother, cannon were fired near -the lake on the 
Saturday, with a view to bringing the bodies to the 
surface; and a Mr. Andrew Clark agreed to go 
to Boston on the Monday to get grappling irons to 
drag the lake more thoroughly. But most people 
still believed that the boys had gone off on a spree 
somewhere, and would no doubt soon return. 

Mrs. Davis went to see Mrs. Critcherson about 
9 a.m. on the Monday morning, and offered her 
services. Mrs. Critcherson said that only one thing 
remained to be done, and that was for someone to 
go to Boston and consult a clairvoyant : and con- 
tinued, ' Mrs. Davis, you are the one I want to go.' 
Mrs. Davis objected that she ' had never visited a 
clairvoyant or consulted one, and did not know 
where to go, and how to turn.' However, not 
feeling able to refuse the grief-stricken mother, she 
finally consented to do as requested, though she 
' had no faith that anything would come of this visit 
to Boston.' On the same train going in was Mr. 
Andrew Clark, who was going to get the grappling 
irons : (he returned at 2 p.m., and the lake was 
dragged, but without result.) 

Mrs. Davis continued : — " I arrived in Boston at 
12 o'clock. I went, as I had been told, to the 
Banner of Light office, and asked, as a stranger, if 
they could direct me to some reliable clairvoyant. 
They directed me to one on, or near, Court Street. 
I found the woman engaged. The gentleman who 
answered the bell-pull directed me to a clairvoyant 
on Dix-place. When I arrived at Dix-place I found 
this woman also engaged, but she directed me to a 
Mrs. York on Washington street, near Common 
street. It was about three o'clock. A sitter was 
leaving as I rang the bell. Mrs. York opened the 



30 CLAIRVOYANCE 

door herself. When I told her my errand, she told 
me she could not see me till the next day ; but on 
my saying the next day would be too late, she told 
me to walk into her parlour, and she would go out 
and take a walk, and on her return would see me. 
These were the only words she addressed to me, and 
I am sure she knew nothing of me whatever, where 
I came from, or what my errand was about. . . 

" Mrs. York was gone about fifteen minutes ; then 
she came into the room, and going to the fireplace 
at once, and with her back to me, and without my 
speaking one word, she said, ' They went East, 
before they went West.' (The rail-road station is 
east from the house in which their mother lived, and 
the lake west.) She then said, ' They saw the fire, 
and so went to the water.' (It was afterwards found 
out that on the day, Friday afternoon, some men 
were burning brush near the lake ; and that was 
what attracted the boys up there.) She then went 
on to describe a boat-house, with a hole in the side 
of the boathouse. She then said, ' They went in 
through this hole in the side.' She described a boat, 
which she said was ' a narrow boat, painted black,' 
and said, ' Oh dear, it was never intended that but 
one person should get into it at a time.' She told of 
their pulling out a little way, the younger brother 
falling into the water first, and the older brother 
trying to save him, and also said, ' The place where 
they are is muddy, and they could not come to the 
surface.' ' Why,' said she, ' it is not the main lake 
they are in, but the shallow point which connects the 
main lake, and they are so near the shore that if it 
was not this time of year you could almost walk in 
and pick them up.' She told of the citizens' interest 
in trying to find them, and said, ' They will not find 
them, they go too far from the shore ; they are on the 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



3* 



left of the boat-house, a few feet from land.' Then I 
said ' If they are in the water they will be found before 
I can reach home.' She said, ' No, they will not be 
found before you get there ; you will have to go and tell 
them where they are, and then they will be found 
within five minutes after you reach the lake.' She 
made me promise to go with them to the lake. She 
said, 'They are very near together; after finding 
one, you will quickly find the other.' — I reached 
Natick at five o'clock. There was a crowd at the 
station. When I got out on to the platform, some 
gentleman said to me ' Mrs. Davis, what did the 
clairvoyant tell you ? ' I answered, ' Haven't you 
found them yet ? ' They said no, and then I told 
them what Mrs. York had said, and went with them 
to the lake. In looking into the boathouse it was 
found that the long narrow boat, — painted as she had 
said all i)i black, was missing ; this boat as she had 
said was to hold only one man, and was unsafe 
occupied by two persons. (I did not know at the 
time of my sitting with Mrs. York that Mr. Benning 
Hall was the owner of such a boat, or that the boat- 
house was used to shelter a boat of this description. 
I had never seen such a boat ; so this part did not 
reach her through my mind.) And this boat was 
found in a cove, some distance from the boathouse, 
a few days after. Neither did I know of the ' hole ' 
in the boathouse until I reached the lake that after- 
noon. Finding that what she said of the boat and 
the hole in the boathouse was true, I began to think 
the rest might be true also ; but no one in the crowd, 
so far as I know, did place any confidence in her 
statement. I stood on the shore and two boats put 
off with men holding grappling irons. I was able to 
tell them how to direct their course. Three or four 
strokes of the oars, and the elder brother of the boys 



32 CLAIRVOYANCE 

who were missing, and who was holding- one of the 
grappling- irons, exclaimed ' I have hold of something.' 
The men stopped rowing, and he raised the body of 
the largest boy above the water. In taking the body 
into the boat, the boat moved a few lengths. They 
were told to go to the same place where the eldest 
had been found, and almost immediately brought up 
the other body. It was not ten minutes after 
reaching the lake that the boys were found, and were 
being taken to their home. As Mrs. York had said 
they were in a muddy place ; their clothes testified 
to the fact. 

The disappearance of the boys in the manner I 
have described is known by fifty persons now living 
in Natick. I cannot say how much larger the 
number is. 

Mrs. York had, while in ■ this trance, by using 
books on the table, showed me the boathouse and 
the shore so well, that any one from the description 
could have gone directly to the water and found 
them. I asked her how she came by this information. 
She answered, ' The boys' father told me.' How did 
she know the boys' father had been dead several 
years ? 

Elizabeth Everett Davis." 

Ten people readily confirmed, from personal 
knowledge, every detail of Mrs. Davis's statement ; 
this number included the mother, step-father, and 
the brother of the drowned boys ; and Mr. Andrew 
Clark, who had fetched the grappling irons from 
Boston." 

It will be noted that the four cases recounted 
above, have one element in common ; in every 
instance death is caused by drowning. In looking 
through the Proceedings and Journal of the S.P.R. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



33 



I have been struck by the large number of instances 
of apparitions of drowned persons. It would I think 
be interesting if these could be tabulated and com- 
pared with the number of apparitions at the time of, 
or after other forms of sudden and violent death. My 
impression is that the proportion of the former 
would be large. In this connexion it may be of 
interest to note that there is at least a popular belief 
that in the act of drowning events of the past life are 
realised with extreme vividness and detail. Though 
there is evidence that this is not universally true, 
still it has undoubtedly occurred in a good many 
instances ; and it may perhaps be deduced that 
immersion in water does sometimes induce a state in 
which the victim receives super-normal impressions, 
and may conceivably convey them to others. 

The following cases are taken from Mrs. Sidgwick's 
article, Pro. VII. 

Of the clairvoyant, the wife of a pitman in the 
county of Durham, whom we will call ' Jane,' Mr. 
Myers, who collected the evidence wrote : — " She has 
never received any fee, nor made any exhibition of 
her powers. On the contrary, she has most carefully 
concealed her faculty from all her neighbours and 
relations, except her husband and sister, for fear of 
being taken for a witch. The witnesses of her clair- 
voyance have consequently been few, consisting 
mainly of a family in whose service one or two of 
her relations had been. We have the testimony of 
three members of this family, viz., the Rev. C. Green 
and his two sisters, who are now Mrs. Fraser and 

Mrs. Myers (wife of a cousin of my own), We 

have also the notes of a Dr. F. Singularly enough, 
it appears that none of these witnesses, with the 
exception of Dr. F., at all realised the rarity of Jane's 
faculty. She was mesmerised at intervals through a 
C 



34 CLAIRVOYANCE 

long period of years — for the sake of her health, by 
the arrangement of her medical attendant, with a view 
to enabling her to sleep at night. And when in the 
mesmeric state she almost always began to talk in a 
childish language, and to ask to ' travel,' that is, to 
be guided by suggestion to places which she could 
clairvoyantly visit. This was done accordingly, 
partly to oblige her, and partly as an amusement ; 
and whenever her reports of her ' travels ' could be 
verified we are told they were found to be correct. 
But as Jane in her normal state shrank from all 
mention of these clairvoyant wanderings, very little 
was said about them. There was thus an entire 
absence of the motives which may often prompt to 
the simulation of clairvoyance." 

Mrs. Thomas Myers wrote that in the year 1845, 
Jane was taken (clairvoyantly), to visit my cousins. 
She said the eldest had measles, and then noticed a 
cradle with a baby in it, rocking rapidly without any- 
one near it. This was thought very strange by the 
operator, (i. e. the mesmeriser), but on writing to tell 
the cousins of the visit they said she was quite correct, 
as the baby used to rock himself with his elbows. In 
1 87 1 I took her (mentally) to a cousin's house in 
Clifton, sister of the ' Baby Willie,' and as she went 
into the house she read 'salve ' on the tiles before the 
glass door ; then entering the Hall she exclaimed, 
' Here is a gentleman. It is Baby Willie ! Baby 
Willie grown a big man." She had never seen him 
since she saw him in that cradle. I was not aware 
he was in Clifton at that time, but found on writing 
to inquire that he had gone for a few days to see his 
sister. . . . Jane was taken by my sister Miss Green, 
I being present, and a Miss A. A., a friend, to "see" 
her (Miss A. A.'s) great aunt, who was ill, but refused 
to let a doctor examine her. Miss A. A.'s mother 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



35 



had gone to nurse her in a town far away from where 
we were, and Jane knew nothing of any of the parties 
nor did we. She entered the house and immediately 
exclaimed ' Oh, for shame ! Oh, for shame ! Two 
bottles and a cup ! Look in the closet : two bottles 
and a cup ! She fell downstairs and has broken her 
leg: she does not wish it known.' Miss A. at once 
wrote to her mother, who looked in the cupboard and 
found two empty bottles and a cup ! The doctor 
examined the leg, /'/ was broken. No previous 
suspicion pointed to this sad discovery." 

We are also told of Jane that " in a very uncom- 
fortable manner for polite operators, she reads the 
minds and thoughts of those she is called to look at, 
and one day when looking at a man, (fortunately not 
in the room), she said, ' We do not like him, his 
heart is as black as his hat.' 

Dr. F. wrote giving many instances, which on the 
whole seem to indicate that Jane's 'travelling' 
experiences were genuine clairvoyance, and not 
merely the result of thought-transference. One of 
these, uninteresting, but evidential, may be given. 
Dr. F. said : — " I was not present myself, the clair- 
voyant being mesmerised by Mrs. Fraser. I was 
visiting a lady professionally — and mentioned the 
subject of clairvoyance, stating that I would ' pay her 
a visit in the spirit.' I met Mrs. Fraser, who said, 
' Who is the lady to whom you have promised a visit ?' 
She then stated that whilst in the mesmeric state, 
Jane was requested to find me, which she did, stating 
that I was in a room with a lady, to whom I was 
addressing the words I have before used." Jane sub- 
sequently gave a detailed description of the room Dr. 
F. had been in, with absolute accuracy, though Mrs. 
Fraser was not in the slightest degree acquainted 
with the house or the lady. 



36 CLAIRVOYANCE 

Other interesting cases of apparent clairvoyance 
were reported by Mr. A. W. Dobbie, of Adelaide, 
South Australia, in 1886. Mr. Dobbie had practised 
hypnotism for ten or twelve years, and hypnotised 
more than 500 persons, chiefly with the view of 
alleviating suffering ; and found that a few of these 
appeared to be clairvoyant. Two percipients, or 
clairvoyants, were the Misses Eliza and Martha 
Dixon, the former being the more lucid of the two. 
These ladies had a large school for young children. 
They very frequently assisted Mr. Dobbie in his 
experiments, but had no pecuniary interest in them 
whatever. Two instances of the Misses Dixon's 
powers may be given, abbreviated from the original 
reports by Mr. Dobbie who wrote : — " The Hon. Dr. 
Campbell, M.L.C., being present at one of my clair- 
voyant evenings, handed me a gold sleeve-link, at 
the same time telling me that he had lost the fellow 
one to it ; he asked me to give the remaining link to 
one of my clairvoyants, and see if they could find the 
missing one. I should state that neither of the clair- 
voyants had ever seen either of the rooms they refer- 
red to, nor did they know the names of the children ; 
so that it is either a case of genuine, clairvoyance, or 
else a most remarkable case of thought-reading." 

Miss Martha Dixon began by first accurately 
describing Dr. Campbell's features, then spoke of a 
little fair-haired boy who had a stud or sleeve-link in 
his hand, also of a lady calling him ' Neil ; ' then said 
that this little boy had taken the link into a place 
like a nursery where there were some toys, especially 
a large toy elephant, and that he had dropped the 
link into this elephant through a hole which had 
been torn or knocked in the breast. Also that he 
had taken it out again, and gave two or three other 
interesting particulars. Subsequently, the other 



CLAIRVOYANCE 37 

sister, Miss Eliza Dixon, described how Dr. Campbell 
had left the link on the table of his dressing-room, 
which she described in minute detail ; and the little 
boy had taken it. Then, (Dr. Campbell being no 
longer in the room), she continued: — "Now I can 
hear someone calling up the stairs, a lady is calling 
two names, Colin is one, and Neil is the other. The 
eldest, Colin, is going downstairs now, he is gone 
into what looks like a dining-room, the lady says, 
' Where is Neil ? ' ' Upstairs, ma.' ' Go and tell him 
to come down at once.' The little fairhaired boy had 
put the link down ; but when he heard his brother 
coming up, he picked it up again. Colin says, ' Neil, 
you are to come down at once,' ' I won't,' says Neil. 
'You're a goose,' replies Colin, and he turned and 
went down without Neil. Now Neil has gone into 
the nursery and put the link into a large toy elephant; 
he put it through a hole in front, which is broken." 
The clairvoyant then described in detail how Dr. 
Campbell searched for the link ; then went on, " Now 
it seems to be another day and the little boy is in the 
nursery again, he has taken the link out of the 
elephant, now he has'dropped it into a drawer." The 
link had in fact been found in a drawer in the dress- 
ing-room in the interval, but left untouched. Miss 
Dixon said, " There is a double-sized dressing-table 
with drawers down each side of it, the sleeve link is 
in the corner of the drawer nearest the door. When 
they found it they left it there. I know why they 
left it there, it was to see if we could find it." 

Dr. Campbell wrote : — " I had no knowledge what- 
ever of the conversation between the children, nor 
the circumstances attending it. It was subsequently 
confirmed to me in part by Mrs. Campbell, such part 
as she herself is reported to have taken in the tableau. 
With respect to the toy elephant, I certainly knew of 



38 CLAIRVOYANCE 

ts existence, but I did not know even by suspicion 
that the elephant was so mutilated as to have a large 
opening in its chest, and on coming home had to 
examine the toy to see whether the statement was 
correct. I need hardly say that it was absolutely 
correct." 

Mrs. Sidgwick, commenting on the above, remarks 
that the greater part might have been obtained by 
thought-transference from the mind of Dr. Campbell 
but that the mention of the toy elephant, being 
unknown to Dr. Campbell, is so remarkable, that 
it makes it seem more probable than not, that the 
hiding of the sleeve link there was also a fact. 

Another case is given by Dr. Dobbie : — " One 
evening, whilst I was busy with several of my clair- 
voyants, Mr. Adamson, J. P. (one of the leading 
citizens of Adelaide), called in company with his 
daughter, and handing me two or three trinkets 
which had been suspended to her watch-chain, 
simply remarked, ' We have lost something. Will 
you kindly see if your clairvoyant can help us in the 
matter ? ' My clairvoyants all being asleep, I quietly 
placed the trinkets in the hand of the one called 
Miss E. Dixon, without remark. In a moment or 
two she proceeded to give an accurate description 
of Miss Adamson. I then said, ' Never mind the 
young lady, something is lost, try and find it." 

In a few moments she commenced to describe a 
gold pencil-case which she saw ' lying on the road in 
one of the suburbs, not in the city, it is not there 
now, it is in a comfortable-looking one-storey house, 
with a garden, and iron railings in front ; and a two- 
storey building opposite.' She then described the 
gentleman who had possession of the pencil-case, 
whom she saw with his wife, and also quoted a 
remark he made, " We will lay it aside and see if 



CLAIRVOYANCE 39 

anyone claims it," and stated that it was placed ' in 
a small box.' My clairvoyant seemed unable to 
give me the locality of this gentleman and his house ; 
however, in reply to an advertisement next day or 
day after, a gentleman answering the description 
given by my clairvoyant brought the lost pencil-case 
to Mr. Adamson, who naturally enough, was so 
astounded at the correct description of a person none 
of us had ever seen or known, that he took the tram 
and visited the neighbourhood and house in which 
the gentleman resided, and to his astonishment he 
found that the description was exact, in fact it was 
the only house in the neighbourhood having iron 
railings, also that there actually was a two-storey 
house opposite, which was also the only one in the 
neighbourhood. Mr. Adamson, on questioning the 
gentleman, found that the pencil-case was found on 
the road described ; also that it had been placed in 
the small box and the remark made re waiting to 
1 see if it would be claimed.' 

Dr. Adamson wrote, fully confirming the above in 
every particular, and adding the additional fact that 
the] clairvoyant had subsequently " followed the 
finder of the pencil case to Adelaide, seeing him go 
upstairs to my son's office, and there give up the 
pencil-case. Of this, as of all former knowledge of 
the article in question, she must have been in total 
ignorance." 

The next case is taken from the S.P.R. Journal: 
the writer, (whose name and address are given in the 
Journal), stated : — 

In the autumn of 1874, when at Berlin, I was 
most anxious to know what was happening in a 
remote part of the North of Scotland. 

Accidentally I heard of a middle-aged woman, Frau 
Meyer, the wife of a bookbinder, living in an obscure 



40 CLAIRVOYANCE 

part of that capital in very modest circumstances, 
who had a marvellous talent for acquainting one 
with what was going on at a distance, as also, to 
a certain extent, of foretelling the future. I called 
upon her, and such was her position, she being 
uneducated and quite of an inferior class of life, that 
at that time (my knowledge of the language being 
sufficiently fluent for it to have been almost impossible 
for her to have even recognised me as a foreigner, 
much less to identify my actual nationality) she 
could not possibly have guessed who I was. 

The process she employed was to pour the white 
of a raw egg into a tumbler of cold water, and then 
to describe the meaning of the fantastic forms 
assumed by the egg. 

In the first instance. she actually described to me 
the age and personal appearance of the individual in 
whom I was interested ; his surroundings and the 
house in which he lived. . . The country also I 
fully recognised from her description. 

After explaining, as was proved later to be most 
correct, his then temperament and feelings, she told 
me she saw him start on a long journey to a large 
capital (London). 

At a visit I paid her immediately afterwards she 
clearly described to me a room she saw him in at 
a hotel, and a stormy interview he had with another 
man, refusing at first to see certain papers, but 
eventually consenting ; also his sudden return to the 
North. I subsequently ascertained the absolute 
accuracy of all that she told me, both as to date, 
interviews, etc. When describing the interview she 
asserted it had taken place the previous evening, 
which proved to be literally true. 

For several months I was able distinctly to follow 
the course of events in the remote part of Europe 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



4i 



previously referred to ; although far distant from it. 
The temper, state of health, and influences by which 
the person in question was surrounded, as also the 
personal appearance and character of those who 
surrounded him, was elaborately laid before me 
during each of the many visits I paid to Frau Meyer. 
Eventually she told me one day with great vehemence, 
that a woman whom she had previously often referred 
to, had succeeded in extracting from him a signed 
document of great importance. She told me its 
existence was unknown to any but the two said 
parties, and strongly urged me to at once acquaint 
my friends with this transaction, assuring me that 
the fact of the existence of the document having 
been known to outsiders being represented to the 
giver of it, would cause it at once to be cancelled. I 
immediately reported the fact, but without giving my 
authority for fear of ridicule, to the proper quarter, 
but was not believed, and there the matter ended. 

At last Frau Meyer told me she saw a grave and a 
hearse in the egg and water tumbler, and that I 
should have a speedy summons to take a long 
journey. This I had to do immediately after that 
interview, and after my departure she told a friend of 
mine, who interviewed her, that she saw I was in 
much trouble, and that I was instantly to be charged 
from her to take a very firm tone in matters. 

Some weeks later my lawyer acquainted me, as a 
great secret, with the fact of the woman possessing 
the document I had been warned about, a secret he 
believed to be unknown to any one but himself and 
the party interested, as its whole value consisted in 
its secrecy until the time came for its being utilised. 
The person to whom I had written about it months 
before, then turned to the lawyer and said, " What 
a fool I am ! he " (pointing to myself) " told me 



42 CLAIRVOYANCE 

all about this months ago, and I would not believe 
him." 

" I have little more to add to this narrative than a 
few details about Frau Meyer ; during our many 
interviews she invariably explained to me what she 
saw, and how she saw it, but I never could follow 
her. Her position being so humble and obscure, her 
fees were most trifling ; from people in her own class 
of life she never asked more than the equivalent of a 
shilling and from people like myself was most 
grateful for even double that sum. I have since 
ascertained that royalty and the highest personages 
in the land used to consult her, either in disguise or 
by deputy, particularly before a war. That she 
could have traced anybody out, so as to ascertain 
about their position, was a material impossibility ; 
she lived without a servant, tended by a young niece, 
to whom she in vain tried to teach her art. She 
told me she had learnt the said art as a child from a 
dwarf, to whom her family had shown kindness, and 
who, out of gratitude, taught it to her in order that 
she might always possess a means of livelihood." 

Some mediums, when they touch material objects, 
appear to become aware of details of their past 
history or ownership. When anyone else, interested 
in the sitting, or present in the room, knows the 
history of the article in question, the medium's 
intuition may with great probability be ascribed to 
telepathy. Intances, however, have occurred in 
which the sitter, or sender has been mistaken as to 
the origin of the object in question, whilst the 
medium has given what ultimately proved to be its 
true history. An example is taken from the S.P.R. 
Journal as follows : — 

" Miss X. said that having accidentally discovered 
that she had some faculty for cognition of the kind, 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



43 



called for want of a better name, ' psychometric,' she 
had experimented carefully in this direction, but 
only to find that impressions were far more veridical 
when spontaneous, than when sought for by 
experiment. In this respect, as well as in others, the 
phenomena seemed to her to follow the analogies of 
crystal-gazing, and, in the case of crystal pictures, to 
be explained in most of her experiences by thought 
transference. She did not, however, feel that these, 
even for herself, had been of sufficient importance to 
be at all conclusive. . . . 

In the first case, she had seen a picture of fire 
(which struck her as being of volcanic, or other, not 
ordinary origin,) followed by one of sea waves. This 
occurred on the handling of a stone, known by the 
person who gave it into her hands to be from the 
shores of the Dead Sea. In the second case she had 
a vision apparently of the Jews' Wailing Place, on 
handling a stone which had actually come from that 
spot, though at the moment erroneously supposed by 
the person who handed it to her, to have come from 
Rome. The third case had interested her as perhaps 
suggestive of the method of this sort of impression. 
A heap of papers, the appearance of which suggested 
nothing but washing bills — had been placed in her 
hands by a friend who knew their history. On 
handling them for a few moments, Miss X. found 
herself gazing at a large meadow in which the grass 
seemed to be burnt and trampled, and strewn with 
small white articles, which for the moment she 
supposed to be the washing in question. The 
impression, however, was accompanied by a sense of 
horror — a perception of cruelty and bloodshed, 
inconsistent with the drying ground of a laundry. 
The papers were as a matter of fact, picked up on 
the morrow of the battle, on the field of Sedan." 



■ 
P 



44 CLAIRVOYANCE 

The powers of Lady Mabel Howard seem to have 
been predominantly clairvoyant. I therefore give 
details in this chapter, rather than under the head of 
Automatic Writing. 

Lady Mabel Howard stated concerning her power 
of writing automatically ; — " I began to write 
automatically every now and then when a young 
girl, as some relations of mine were in the habit of 
doing so. I do not, however, remember any of the 
messages until I was eighteen." 

Mr Myers wrote in S.P.R. Proceedings Vol. IX., 
page 47 ; — " I have myself succeeded in getting two 
correct answers to questions absolutely beyond Lady 
Mabel's knowledge. I was asked to luncheon at the 
house of a gentleman whom I knew only by corres- 
pondence, and of whose home and entourage the rest 
of the party knew absolutely nothing. On my return 
I asked, ' How many people sat down to luncheon ? ' 
The answer was ' Six,' which was right. ' What was 
the name of the gentleman, not my host, with whom 
I sat and talked after luncheon ? " The pencil 
wrote " MO " and began to scrawl. The name was 
Moultrie. It was impossible Lady Mabel should 
have had any kind of notion that a gentleman of that 
name would have been present in a group of which 
she knew nothing whatever. But here the impulse 
to write seemed spent, and a few further questions 
were answered by erroneous words or mere scrawls." 

The following statement, dated Downes, Crediton, 
Devonshire, April 8th, 1893, ls signed by Sir Redvers 
Buller, K.C.B., and by Miss Dorothy Howard, 
(daughter of Lady Audrey Buller.) " Lady Mabel 
Howard was stopping with us this week. She was 
writing with her pencil just after arriving. Someone 
asked ; ' Where is Don ? ' The pencil immediately 
answered, ' He is dead.' Lady Mabel then asked 



CLAIRVOYANCE 45 

who Don was, and was told he was a dog. No one 
in the room knew that he was dead ; but on inquiry 
the next day, it was found that it was so. One of 
the party then asked how many fish would be caught 
in the river the next day. The pencil at once wrote 
' Three,' which was the number obtained the next 
day. A little girl in the house, who attends school 
in London, asked who was her greatest friend in this 
school. The pencil answered ' Mary,' which was 
again a fact absolutely unknown to Lady Mabel. 

Dorothy E. Howard. 

Redvers Buller." 



Statement by Lady Vane : — " Hutton in the 
Forest, April 8, 1894. About a month ago I lost a 
book, a manuscript one, relating to this house. I 
thought I had left it in my writing-table in my 
sitting-room, and intended to add a note about some 
alterations just completed, but next day the book had 
vanished. I looked through every drawer and cup- 
board in my room and then asked Sir Henry to do 
the same, which he did twice. I also made the head 
housemaid turn everything out of them and helped 
her to do so ; so that four thorough searches were 
made ; but in vain. We also looked in the gallery 
and library, (the only other rooms to which the book 
had been taken), and could not find it. On March 
28th I asked Lady Mabel Howard to write about it. 
She wrote, ' It is in the locked cupboard in the book- 
case, hidden behind the books.' " (Lady Mabel 
Howard explained : — " I saw Lady Vane on February 
24th when the book had not been lost. I did not see 
her again till Easter Monday. The moment I got 
upstairs she exclaimed, ' I want you to find a book 
for me I have lost.' No pencil nor paper was forth- 



46 CLAIRVOYANCE 

coming, so she said, ■ Never mind, write when you 
get home,' but I forgot, and it was two days after at 
the Point to Point race that she asked me again, and 
we wrote it in the paper the sandwiches had been 
in.") 

" I said, ' Then it must be in the library, because 
the bookcases are locked.' And Lady Mabel wrote, 
' Not in the library.' I said then it must be in the 
ante-room in the cupboard, and asked if I should 
find it. Lady Mabel wrote, ' No,' send Sir Henry ? I 
asked, ' will he find it ? ' and she wrote, ' Of course.' 
Still thinking it could only be the ante-room or the 
library, I asked, -Which end of the room?' Lady 
Mabel wrote, ' The tapestry end.' I asked, 'Is it on 
the window side of the room or on the other ? ' and she 
wrote, ' The other.' A friend staying in the house looked 
in the bookcases in the library and the tapestry end, 
and in the cupboard in the ante-room, (I had met 
with an accident and could not go myself), and could 
not find the book, so we gave it up. 

" On April 5th Sir Henry was in my sitting-room 
and suddenly said, ' I have an idea ! Lady Mabel 
meant this room. There is the bookcase and the 
locked cupboard in it ; and the wall outside the door 
is covered with tapestry.' I said, ' You have looked 
in that cupboard twice, and so have I and the house- 
maid, and the book is not there; but look again if 
you like.' Sir Henry unlocked the door of the 
cupboard and took out all the books, (there were not 
more than half a dozen), and put them on the floor. 
The last he put back into the cupboard was a scrap- 
book for newspaper cuttings, and as it was rather 
dark he could not see the name on the back and 
therefore opened it to see what it was, and the lost 
manuscript book fell out. 



CLAIRVOYANCE 



47 



" Having searched this very small cupboard four 
times previously, either of us would have been ready 
to swear that this book was not in it." 

(Signed) Margaret Vane. 
Henry Vane. 

Mr. Myers commented, " Are we to describe this 
as a knowledge of past, of present, or of future ? Or 
may we say that a . . . perception of this kind is not 
strictly conditioned by time ? ... In this case the 
whereabouts of the book can hardly have been 
supraliminally known to any human being ; since 
the workman or servant whose hands may have 
slipped it into the larger book was probably unaware 
of what it was, or even of his own unthinking 
action itself. If, however, it were Sir Henry or Lady 
Vane who unthinkingly placed the small book in the 
larger one — and this does not seem quite impossible — 
Lady Mabel's knowledge might have been drawn 
telepathically from their subliminal memory." 



CHAPTER III 

CRYSTAL-GAZING 

CRYSTAL gazing, or scrying as it is sometimes called, 
has been practised from pre-historic times, (3,000 
years certainly), by various methods, in Assyria, 
Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Japan, India ; 
and in the form of Cup divination among the natives 
of the South Sea Islands. The Cup of Joseph was 
that by which he divined. The answers received 
by the Jewish High Priest through " Urim and 
Thummim " most probably involved some form of 
crystal gazing. 

After the overthrow of the Roman Empire scrying 
seems to have fallen to some extent into disuetude, 
but it was resumed, and reached its height in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at the Courts of 
the Emperor Maximilian, Catherine de Medici, 
Queen Elizabeth, and some of the Italian Princes. 
Dr. Dee, the most famous of English scryers, was 
born in 1527; his " Shew Stone" is now said to be 
in the British Museum. The scryer, however, was 
usually a child, as is the case in modern Egypt. 

The above is summarized from an article by Miss 
Goodrich Freer in S.P.R. Proceedings, Vol. V. Mis? 
Goodrich Freer says that besides polished crystals, 
beryls, and other gems, scryers have used vessels 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 



49 



containing liquid, generally water ; mirrors of 
polished steel ; liquid poured into the palm of the 
hand ; and even the human finger nail. The part 
played by the crystal is mainly to concentrate the 
gaze ; it is in fact a form of self-hypnotization. 
Miss Goodrich Freer gives directions for the process of 
crystal gazing as follows : — " Look about your room 
for any article having a polished surface suggestive 
of depth — something you can look not only at, but 
into ; the back of a Japanese tea-tray, a glass ball of 
any kind, the stem of a glass vase without ornament 
or cutting, a plain glass bottle of ink, a tumbler of 
water, — take any one of these, sit down in a shady 
corner, arrange the object so as to guard against re- 
flections, (a dark handkerchief is very useful for this 
purpose), and look into it quietly. Do not stare or 

inconvenience yourself in any way. Do not be 

discouraged if you have no success for a long time. 
I have myself lost the power of crystal gazing at 
times for weeks together ; at others I cannot look 
steadily into any reflecting surface without seeing a 
picture of some kind." 

Visions seen in the crystal may be classified under 
three heads : Memory, Clairvoyance, telepathic or 
otherwise, Premonition. Miss Goodrich Freer seems 
to have habitually looked in her crystal, as a matter 
of practical utility, when she wanted to recall matters 
she had forgotten. On one such occasion she 
says : — " I had carelessly destroyed a letter without 
preserving the address of my correspondent. I knew 
the county, and searching in a map recognised the 
name of the town, one unfamiliar to me, but which I 
was sure I should know when I saw it. But I had 
no clue to the name of house or street, till at last it 
struck me to test the value of the crystal as a means 
of recalling forgotten knowledge. A very short 
D 



50 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

inspection supplied me with ' H — House ' ; (the 
entire word, one I knew in no other connection, was 
supplied), in grey letters on a white ground ; and 
having nothing better to suggest from any other 
source, I risked posting the letter to the address so 
strangely supplied. A day or two brought me an 
answer, headed ' H — , House ' in grey letters on a 
white ground." 

Another instance of the crystal recalling forgotten 
knowledge is also given by Miss Goodrich Freer. " I 
happened to want the date of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
which I could not recall, though feeling sure that I 
knew it and that I associated it with some event of 
importance. When looking in the crystal some 
hours afterwards, I found the picture of an old man 
with long white hair and beard, dressed like a 
Lyceum Shylock, and busy writing in a large book 
with tarnished massive clasps. I wondered much 
who he was, and what he could possibly be doing, 
and thought it a good opportunity of carrying out a 
suggestion which had been made to me, of examining 
objects in the crystal with a magnifying glass. The 
glass revealed to me that my old gentleman was 
writing in Greek, though the lines faded away as I 
looked, all but the characters he had last traced, the 
Latin numerals LXX. Then it flashed into my 
mind that he was one of the Jewish Elders at work 
on the Septuagint, and that its date, 277 B.C., would 
serve equally for Ptolemy Philadelphus. It may be 
worth while to add, though the fact was not in my 
conscious memory at the moment, that I had once 
learnt a chronology on a mnemonic system which 
substituted letters for figures, and the memoria 
technica for this date, was ' Now Jewish Elders indite 
a Greek Copy.' " 

Miss Goodrich Freer recounts also visions of a clair- 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 



5i 



voyant nature, some apparently telepathic. " A small 
key had been lost, by a member of the household, to 
the general inconvenience, and all other means having 
failed I applied to the crystal for information. All 
that I obtained, after careful inspection, was a glow 
of red colour, which, as I had taken every precaution 
against reflection, seemed meaningless, and so, con- 
cluding that a mere formless shining so entirely new 
to my experience could be merely the effect of 
weariness, mental or physical, I put the crystal away. 
The following afternoon I was playing the piano, 
paying no attention to what was passing in the 
room, when my ear was caught by the sound of a 
click. Before I had consciously recognised it as the 
snap of a purse, the red glow recurred to mind, and 
it flashed across my thoughts that A., the loser of the 
key, was the possessor of a scarlet morocco purse. 
Offering no reason, I begged to be allowed to handle 
it, and in an outside pocket found the missing key. 

"On the evening of Saturday July 28, 1888, the 
crystal presented me with a picture of a mediaeval 
saint, carrying a rabbit. This I recognised as 
representing a stained glass window at a Church in 
the neighbourhood, which I visit perhaps two or 
three times a year, always sitting within view of this 
window. As I had not been there for many months, 
nor consciously pictured the spot since my last visit, 
I was puzzled to account for the vision. Early the 
next morning on waking I observed on my table a 
letter, which had probably lain there unnoticed the 
previous evening, and which I found contained a 
request that I would if possible, attend the early 
service at the church in question that morning. The 
friend from whom the request came was an invalid, 
who came to London the day before for medical 
treatment, whom I had believed unable to leave his 






52 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

room, and from whom I had certainly not expected 
to receive any such message." 

Miss Goodrich Freer tells how, having heard that 
Dr. Dee's famous " Shew-Stone " or crystal, was being 
exhibited at the Stuart Exhibition she and a friend 
went thither, " particularly anxious to achieve a 
collective vision. And this is what happened. We 
had at home a certain keyed instrument, called by 
courtesy * musical.' It was now voiceless, and was 
practically utilised as a table to hold books. In the 
crystal we both saw the following scene : — C. and H. 
were joint possessors of the instrument, and we saw 
them sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace in the 
room where it was kept, but while I, in my picture, 
so to speak, faced the right, my friend faced the left. 
Neither of us knew that H. was in the house, nor 
likely to be, as he was living some miles distant from 
home ; nor were we prepared for what followed. 
Both C. and H. rose and went to the instrument 
which was open, and H. sat down and began to play. 
On our return home we discovered that H. had, in 
fact, come in, that he had mended the organ, and 
that he was exhibiting his success to C. by playing 
upon it at that very hour." 

" One evening, being tired, I was about to go 
early to my room, when it occurred to me to wait 
for the last post, already late, that I might not be 
again disturbed by having the letters brought to my 
room. I took up the Crystal rather to pass the time 
than with much expectation of seeing anything, for 
as a rule when one is tired the concentration of 
attention necessary to crystal vision is somewhat 
difficult to attain. However, I perceived a white 
object on a dark ground, soon becoming more clearly 
defined as a letter in a very large envelope torn at 
the edges as if not sufficiently strong to hold its 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 53 

contents. Another envelope, of ordinary size, lying 
at the top, concealed the address, and the writing on 
the smaller one was too blurred to decipher. The 
vision was momentary only, or I might have applied 
the test of the magnifying glass, which is sometimes, 
though not always, of use in such cases. I thought 
it possible that the vision might be merely the result 
of expectation, but it seemed at least worth while, 
after making a note of the fact — my invariable rule 
whenever possible — to test its significance. As a 
matter of fact the letters were lying on a seat in the 
hall, showing white against the dark polished wood — 
placed there possibly by someone leaving the house 
who had met the postman before he had time to ring. 
The letters were two — the lower one, which had 
burst the envelope, was of the size of a sheet of 
letter paper not folded, and was for myself; the 
upper one the usual size of a note, and not for me, 
which may have accounted for my inability to read 
the address." 

A curious vision, which certainly appears to have 
been a premonition, is also described by Miss Goodrich 
Freer. " I saw in the crystal the figure of a man 
crouching at a small window, and looking into the 
room from the outside. I could not see his features, 
which appeared to be muffled, but the crystal was 
particularly dark that evening, and the picture being 
an unpleasant one, I did not persevere. I concluded 
the vision to be a result of a discussion in my presence 
of the many stories of burglaries with which the 
newspapers had lately abounded, and reflected with a 
passing satisfaction that the only windows in the 
bouse divided into four panes as were those of the 
crystal picture, were in the front attic, and almost 
inaccessible. Three days later a fire broke out in 
that very room, which had to be entered from outside 



54 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

through the window, the fireman being covered with 
a wet cloth, as a protection from the smoke which 
rendered access through the door impossible." 

Other interesting cases of modern scrying are 
recounted by the late Mr. Andrew Lang, in " Making 
of Religion." Mr. Lang himself gave a crystal to a 
young lady, Miss Angus, and requested her to try 
her luck at scrying. Miss Angus proved most 
successful, particularly on the lines of what we may 
call telepathic clairvoyance. On one occasion when 
Miss Angus was with some people whose acquaintance 
she had made on the previous day, and of whose 
affairs she knew nothing, one of them, Mr. Bissett, 
asked " What letter was in his pocket ? " Miss 
Angus, looking in the crystal, saw a big building, 
with many men entering it and leaving it : ' Now 
comes a man in a great hurry : he has a broad brow, 
and short curly hair. The face is very serious, but 
he has a delightful smile.' An accurate description 
of Mr. Bissett's friend and stockbroker, from whom 
the letter was ! 

There was also present a lady, Mrs. Cockburn, 
particularly anxious to hear of her daughter, a young 
married woman, fifty miles away. In the midst of 
the stockbroker vision the scene changed, and Miss 
Angus saw a lady lying on a sofa, in a peignoir, and 
with bare feet : a hospital nurse stood by. Miss 
Angus mentioned this vision as a bore, and Mrs. 
Cockburn did not at the time connect it with her 
daughter. But some days later she wrote to inquire 
'whether on Wednesday, Feb. 2, she had been lying 
on a sofa in her bedroom with bare feet ? ' The 
young lady confessed that it was even so ; and when 
she heard how the fact came to be known, expressed 
herself with some warmth on the abuse of glass balls, 
which tend to rob life of its privacy." 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 55 

It must be borne in mind that Miss Angus would 
not have known that she possessed a faculty for 
scrying if Mr. Lang had not presented her with a 
crystal. It seems probable that many people have 
the power, although they are unconscious of it. 
The following case was the result of a first effort of 
scrying; it is taken from the S.P.R. Journal, 
where all names are given in full. 

Miss S. wrote: — "One afternoon, during the absence 
of my brother in Normandy, I was asked to look 
in a ring containing a semi-transparent Persian stone 
of dark green colour. I was to think of my brother 
and see if any picture in the stone would reveal his 
whereabouts. After a few moments of gazing with 
no results, I was going to hand the ring back, when 
quite suddenly I distinctly saw a lovely little sea- 
piece. A lighthouse stood at the end of a ridge of 
rocks which were showing well above the blue water: 
it being clearly low tide. A little fishing vessel with 
reddish brown sails was further out to sea to the left 
of the lighthouse. I was astonished to see it all so 
clearly, but thinking my brother was at Rouen, 
could see no connection with him. However on his 
return two days later I told him of my experiment, 
when he said that he had at that identical time been 
looking at exactly the view I described from his 
hotel window at Cherbourg. It had struck him as 
being so pretty, that he had called the friend with 
whom he was travelling to admire it with him. I 
thereupon made a rough sort of sketch of what I had 
seen, and shewed it to this friend without telling him 
the reason. He at once recognized it, also I may 
add that I have never myself visited Cherbourg 
either before or after." 

Another instance of scrying ' by request,' and 



56 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

even against the grain, is to be found in S.P.R. 
Proceedings, Vol. XII. 

In Proceedings Vols. VIII and IX Mr. Myers gave 
extremely interesting particulars of crystal visions 
seen by a lady he terms " Miss A." He wrote : — " In 
the next case which I propose to give at length, 
crystal vision forms but a small, and an ill-recorded 
part of a long and complex group of phenomena 
centering in a lady who wishes here to be known as 
Miss A. I have had the privilege of an intimate 
acquaintance with Miss A. and her family for eight 
years, and have personally witnessed many of these 
phenomena. But it must be remembered that I am 
no longer dealing . . . with records of experiments 
undertaken at my own request, and for a definite 
scientific purpose. On the contrary, I have been 
merely invited to hear or to witness fragments of a 
continuous series of phenomena, which have been 
observed only for private interest and satisfaction, 
and to which Miss A. and her family were long 
unwilling to give any kind of publicity. I have now 
to thank them for permission kindly accorded to 
print the following pages. . . . For the present I 
have confined myself mainly to crystal-visions, and 
have asked Miss A. to reply to certain questions, and 
to give such instances of veridical visions as now 
admit of corroboration. For convenience' sake, I 
have interspersed between square brackets some 
notes made by the Countess of Radnor, the friend in 
whose presence many of the phenomena occurred, 
and who has revised these pages ; also some unsigned 
notes of my own." 

In response to Mr. Myers' questions Miss A. wrote 
as follows : — 

i. Health. — I do not know if my health affects 
the crystal-seeing ; I am so seldom ill that I have not 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 57 

tried. If I have a headache I never look in the 
crystal ; but I imagine I should see equally well any 
way. 

2. Visualising Power. — I see in the crystal much 
more distinctly than I could ever imagine things. I 
am a very bad visualiser ; and when I think of people 
I do so much more by the sound of their voice than 
by their faces or figures. I don't think I ever 
imagined a group in action in my life. I am very 
short-sighted, and seldom wear glasses; consequently, 
I rarely get a clear picture of any room or scene. 
But when I look in the crystal I see everything as 
clearly as though I had strong glasses on. I cannot 
be sure whether either my short sight or my 
visualising power is better in dreams than in waking 
hours ; but I think both are better. Certainly, 
however, I never see in dreams any scene at all 
comparable in clearness to what I see in the crystal. 

1 have no artistic gift, although I have received a 
few lessons in drawing and painting. I have 
automatically drawn figures, a snake, etc., much better 
than I can draw by conscious effort. 

3. Visions apart from Crystal or other Speculum. — 
I have sometimes, generally as the result of effort, 
seen hallucinatory figures — all of them I believe in 
some sense veridical, never mere subjective 
hallucinations, — standing or sitting in the room. . . . 

4. First Discovery of the Power. — It is now some 
years since I first began to look in the crystal. I 
had already written automatically ; but knew nothing 
of crystal- vision. I happened one day to be lunching 
with some friends who talked on the subject, and said 
they believed that a glass of clear water acted in the 
same manner. Two or three of us looked in glasses 
of water, and after a little while I seemed to see at 
the bottom of my glass a small gold key. This was 



58 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

so distinct that I looked on the tablecloth thinking 
that there must be a real key there. There was 
none, and nothing to explain what I saw. 

5. Speculum and Mode of Gazing. — We bought a 
glass ball, and I gradually began to see a good deal 
in it. I have since seen in several crystals, in a 
moonstone, in a bracelet, etc. [I have known her see 
things in a polished table. — H. M. Radnor.] It does 
not seem to matter much what the smooth surface 
is ; but I have sometimes fancied that the scenes were 
brighter if seen in a real crystal. Occasionally I see 
things in a mirror, or even without any clear surface, 
as though I were in the midst of them. 

I either take the crystal into a dark corner of the 
room, or wrap it up in black with only a little bit 
uncovered, or if it is small I hold it inside my hand 
and look right into it. I can see equally well in the 
dark. After a minute or two I seem to see a very 
bright light in it, which disappears after a few 
seconds, and then the surface appears cloudy and 
thick. This mist clears away and I see sometimes 
views, sometimes faces, sometimes letters, and all 
kinds of things in it. They only last for a few 
seconds or sometimes minutes, and between each new 
picture I see the same light and then mist. I cannot 
look in the crystal for long, as it makes my eyes 
water in the brightness of the light, and gives me a 
feeling as if a band were tied round my head ; but if 
I only look a little while it does not hurt me at all. 
The crystal seems to become a globe of light. If a 
sunlit scene appears, the light may continue, or it 
may disappear before the figure shows itself. I am 
in a perfectly normal condition when I look; not 
sleepy, nor in a trance, nor unconscious of my 
surroundings. 

6. Magnification, etc. — I have tried the magnifying 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 59 

glass. The results are just the same as without it ; 
only the glass being on the top I suppose I see in it 
instead of in the crystal. I cannot tell when people 
ask me whether the figures which I see are big or 
small ; for I feel as if I were in some way close to 
them ; so I cannot define their size. [I have often 
remarked that when Miss A. looks in the crystal she 
describes things not as if she saw them in a picture, 
but as if she were actually there, and the places and 
people were round her. — H. M. Radnor.] Before the 
figures come I see the crystal in my usual short- 
sighted manner, so that, for instance, I could not 
distinguish my own reflection in it. But the figures 
are quite clear ; and I can follow a figure even if it 
appears to be walking to a great distance. But if I 
specially look at some detail in the picture, that 
detail generally seems to get clearer to me. 

If I move my eyes from the crystal, or if I close 
my eyes, the picture disappears. If I move the 
crystal about I seem to shake the picture out of it. 
When the picture is once lost I can seldom get it 
again. Once or twice I have succeeded in doing so, 
but there have always been other pictures between. 

7. Verbal Messages in the Crystal, — When I see 
writing in the crystal I see it only one letter at a 
time ; and when the letters are put down they are 
found to be words spelt backwards. 

8. General Characteristics of the Pictures. — Some- 
times the things which I see are interesting, and 
sometimes just the reverse ; sometimes true and 
sometimes not. If I wish to see a particular person, 
I cannot do so, but I probably see something quite 
different. I cannot tell if what I am seeing is past, 
present, or future. I do not think that the pictures 
have anything to do with what I read and see in the 
ordinary way. . . 



60 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

Some time ago I was looking in my crystal and 
saw Lady Radnor sitting in a room I had never 
seen, in a big red chair, and a lady in a black dress 
and white cap whom I had never seen came in and 
put her hand upon Lady R's shoulder. It was 
about 7.30 I think. I immediately, that same 
evening, wrote to Lady Radnor to ask her to write 
down what she was doing at 7.30, as I had seen her 
in the crystal. . . It was quite right ; she had 
been sitting in a red armchair, and Lady Jane E., 
dressed as I described her, had come in and put her 
hand on her shoulder. Afterwards, when I met 
Lady Jane E., I recognised her, without knowing 
who she was, as the lady I had seen. Also when I 
went to the house I recognised the chair. 

[This is perfectly correct. Miss A. had never 
been to Longford when she described my room, 
which was right in every particular, even to the fact 
that my chair was quite touching the corner of the 
high fender. H. M. Radnor.] 

In one case I saw and described Mr. B. (a well 
known writer) whom I knew slightly, as hunting for 
a paper in the drawers of a writing table. He used 
a particular pen, which I described, and with his 
hands ruffled his hair till it stood up in a kind of 
halo. A lady came in and pointed to his hair and 
laughed. Lord Radnor inquired of Mr. B. and all 
this was found to be correct. He was writing with a 
pen unusual to him, and was looking for a paper 
which he wanted to send by post. His sister, (I did 
not know that she lived with him, and had never 
seen her) entered the room, and pointed laughing to 
his hair, just as I had seen. [Confirmed. H. M. 
Radnor.] " 

Lady Radnor wrote to Mr. Myers on February 
23, 1890, from Longford Castle, Salisbury, as 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 61 

follows : — " Miss A. has been with me now for three 
weeks ; but the fact is she sees and hears so many 
things that we really can't keep pace with them all 
in the matter of chronicling. The most interesting 
thing we have had I think is that she has several 
times seen in the crystal and at sittings a figure 
purporting to be Lord Strafford (the one executed 
by Charles I.) who declares that a paper signed by 
Henrietta Maria about himself is hidden in this 
house. He keeps on saying, ' Find the Queen's 
Seal.' Oddly enough, since this occurred I have 
found a scrap of paper in the late Lady Radnor's 
handwriting, mentioning the things in Queen 
Elizabeth's cabinet, and amongst others there is a 
deed or document signed by Henrietta Maria and 
the great officers of her household, including the 
Keeper of the Queen's Great Seal. This paper is 
nowhere to be found now, though the other articles 
are all there as named in the list. The figure says 
the paper had to do with his (Strafford's) release." 

Mr. Myers stated : — " In answer to my questions 
Lady Radnor further writes February 25, ' By no 
possibility could Miss A. have seen the list I refer 
to (of objects in the cabinet.) It was locked up 
among a lot of old papers that I knew nothing of; 
and as I had forgotten the fact myself I could not 
have mentioned it.' " 

Sir Joseph Barnby, the well-known musician, 
wrote as follows, in November 1892. " I was invited 
by Lord and Lady Radnor to the wedding of their 
daughter, Lady Wilma Bouverie, which took place 
August 15th, 1889. I was met at Salisbury by 
Lord and Lady Radnor and driven to Longford 
Castle. In the course of the drive, Lady Radnor 
said to me : ' We have a young lady staying with us 
in whom, I think, you will be much interested. She 



62 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

possesses the faculty of seeing visions, and is other- 
wise closely connected with the spiritual world. 
Only last night she was looking in her crystal and 
described a room which she saw therein. . . With 
a laugh, she added, — And the family are evidently 
at prayers, the servants are kneeling at the chairs 
round the room, and the prayers are being read by 
a tall distinguished-looking gentleman with a very 
handsome, long grey beard. . . A lady just 
behind him rises from her knees and speaks to him. 
He puts her aside with a wave of the hand, and 
continues reading.' . . Lady Radnor then said : 
' From the description given, I cannot help thinking 
that the two principal personages described are 
Lord and Lady L., but I shall ask Lord L. this 
evening, as they are coming by a later train, and I 
should like you to be present when the answer is 
given.' 

That same evening, after dinner, I was talking to 
Lord L. when Lady Radnor came up to him and 
said : ' I want to ask you a question. I am afraid 
you will think it a very silly one, but in any case 
I hope you will not ask me why I put the question.' 
To this Lord L. courteously assented. She then 
said : ' Were you at home last night ? ' He replied 
' Yes.' She said : ' Were you having family prayers 
at such a time last evening? ' With a slight look of 
surprise he replied, 'Yes, we were.' She then said: 
' During the course of the prayers did Lady L. rise 
from her knees and speak to you, and did you put 
her aside with the wave of the hand ? ' Much 
astonished, Lord L. answered : ' Yes, that was so, 
but may I enquire why you have asked the 
question ? ' To which Lady Radnor answered : 
' You promised you wouldn't ask me that' 

The day following was the day of the wedding, 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 63 

and at a dinner party held in the evening my 
attention was called by Lady Radnor to Miss A. 
who seemed to be listening to something. On 
inquiring the cause, Lady Radnor asked me ' If I 
had not heard the raps ? ' as she supposed Miss A. 
' was receiving a message.' I had not heard the 
raps, but I begged to be made acquainted as soon after 
dinner as possible with the purport of the message. 
On rejoining the ladies, I inquired at once what the 
message might be? Lady Radnor replied: 'The 
message is somewhat mysterious and there is a 
portion of it we cannot make out, but the general 
purport is : — There is danger in the . . . reservoir be- 
longing to the Liverpool Waterworks Company.' 
About twenty minutes later the additional message 
was rapped out. ' The danger is in the left-hand 
corner.' Here I laughed the laugh of the scornful, 
and remarked : ' There is a beautiful vagueness 
about that, seeing that it depends upon which side of 
a parallelogram you stand before you can determine 
the left hand corner ! ' Four days later a paragraph 
appeared in most of the London dailies to the effect 
that the inhabitants of . . . were in a state of con- 
siderable alarm on account of some sign of weakness 
having appeared in the Welsh reservoir belonging to 
the Liverpool Waterworks Company. They had 
sent a deputation to the company requesting that an 
expert should be got down from London to examine 
the defect. Needless to say Miss A. had never 
heard the name of the place, ' an unpronounceable 
Welsh name,' had no interest in that part of the 
country, and had never been in the neighbourhood. 

Two days after the wedding I was driven by Lady 
Radnor and Miss A. to Salisbury Cathedral to play 
on the organ, a magnificent specimen of cathedral 
organs. I was much interested in the instrument 



64 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

and became absorbed in my playing. At the end of 
two hours I rejoined the ladies, who had been sitting 
in the body of the vast church. On our drive back 
to Longford, Lady Radnor asked Miss A. why she 
was so silent and thoughtful, to which Miss A. 
answered : ' I have had such strange experiences in 
the Cathedral during the time Mr. Barnby was 
playing.' On being asked to relate them, Miss A. 
begged to be excused until she arrived at the Castle, 
as the grinding of the carriage wheels over the newly 
metalled roads made it difficult to hear one another 
speak. 

Whether this promise was forgotten, or whether 
callers put it out of her head, I cannot say, but I left 
Longford without hearing any more of the matter. 
Eleven months later, Lady Radnor, during a call 
upon my wife, told me the following : ' Miss A.'s 
statement was to the effect that she had seen vast 
processions of gorgeously apparelled Catholic 
ecclesiastics with jewelled crosses carried before 
them, gorgeous canopies and baldachinos held over 
them, and clouds of incense filling the place. 
Amongst the dignitaries was one who came near 
them and gazed at them with a singularly sad ex- 
pression of countenance. On being asked why he 
looked so sad, he said : ' I have been a great sinner. 
I was greatly responsible for the beheading of Anne 
Boleyn. What adds to the sadness of it, her father 
and I were boys together, and our homes were in 
close proximity to each other.' On being asked his 
name, he said, ' My name is John Longland.' On 
being further questioned he replied : ' Mr. Barnby's 
music brought me here. I often hear it in Eton 
Chapel.' 

Lady Radnor then went on to say ; ' I was 
naturally desirous of finding out who this John 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 65 

Longland might be, but after several unsuccessful 
efforts I was beginning to despair of solving the 
mystery, when five months later, I found it recorded 
in a long, thin, worm-eaten book, (in an old lobby 
cupboard at Longford), containing the name of 
John Longland, Dean of Salisbury in the reign of 
Henry VIII.. 'This was sufficiently extraordinary ; 
but on my inquiring what connection he had with 
Eton, her ladyship remarked that she had already 
told me all she knew. Thereupon I said, ' I wonder 
if he is mentioned in Maxwell Lyte's History of Eton 
College? 'and I rose at once to get the book. There 
I found he was mentioned on pages 103 and 124 as 
having been Dean of Salisbury and Confessor to 
Henry the Eighth. He was soon translated to 
Lincoln which carried with it the appointment of 
Visitor to Eton College. It appears — he (Long- 
land), gave largely to the college, the ministers of 
the ' queere,' and even the bell-ringers were not 
forgotten ; and by his will he gave instructions 
likewise that his heart should be buried 'afore the 
holy aultar in Lincoln Cathedral, and his body in 
Eton College Chapel.' — Here then, is the explanation 
of his connection with Eton and his love of music. 

One more incident in connection with the extra- 
ordinary powers of this young lady remains to be 
noted. Whilst looking in her crystal during one of the 
days I spent at Longford, she described, amongst a 
number of things not necessary to mention, a room 
which appeared to her to be a bedroom. She appeared 
to be viewing the room from just outside the open door, 
for she said, ' If there be a bed in the room it must 

be behind the door on the left.' She added : 

' There is a lady in the room, drying her hands with 
a towel.' She described the lady as tall, dark, 
slightly foreign in appearance, and with rather ' an 
E 



66 CRYSTAL-GAZING 

air ' about her. This described with such astonishing 
accuracy my wife, and the room she was occupying 
at a hotel at Eastbourne, that I was impelled to ask 
for particulars as to dress, &c. She stated that the 
dress was of serge with a good deal of braid on the 
bodice and a strip of braid down one side of the 
skirt. This threw me off the scent, as before I had 
started for Longford my wife had expressed regret 
that she had not a serge dress with her. My aston- 
ishment, therefore, was great on returning to East- 
bourne to find my wife wearing a serge dress 
exactly answering to the description given above. 
The sequel to this incident comes some sixteen 
months later on, when my wife and I attended a 
performance at Princes Hall. We arrived early, 
and after placing my wife in a seat, I moved about 
the room speaking to friends here and there. In the 
course of ten minutes or so, Lady Radnor and Miss 
A. entered the room. During the greetings which 
ensued, Miss A. called my attention to a standing 
figure, saying : ' You will remember my seeing & 
lady in her bedroom while looking in my crystal ; 
that is the lady I saw.' That was my wife ! I only 
need add that she had never seen my wife. 

Joseph Barnby." 

Lady Barnby wrote as follows in corroboration of 
the incident relating to her own dress : — " 9 St. 
George's Square, S.W. November 12, 1892. 

" The account about my dress is remarkable as 
being out of the general course of things in this way : 
I had been remarking to Sir Joseph that it was a 
mistake to come to the seaside without a serge dress. 
Sir Joseph left the next day for Longford, and I 
wrote to Madame D., telling her to make me the 
gown. She got the letter Tuesday, August 13, 1889, 



CRYSTAL-GAZING 67 

and in the marvellously short time by Saturday I 
had received the gown. Then again, it is not usual 
in an hotel to have one's bedroom door open when 
one is occupying the room, but the reason for it on 
this occasion was the fact that I was to meet Sir 
Joseph on his return from Longford, Tuesday, 
August 20, as a surprise in this new serge gown, and 
having no clock in our bedroom — I, thinking I was 
somewhat late for meeting the train, opened the 
door to call to my maid to tell me the time, as I 
washed my hands standing at the washstand in a 
line with the open door. I do not suppose I have 
ever done such a thing at an hotel before or since. 

Edith Mary Barnby." 

(Mr. Myers noted, ' These dates have been con- 
firmed by Lady Barnby from her diary. Lady 
Barnby also tells me that her nurse confirms the 
little incident of the wearing of the serge dress for 
the first time on August 20th. The crystal scene, 
therefore, seems to have anticipated a certain definite 
moment.') 



CHAPTER IV 

MEDIUMS 

I DO not intend to attempt a technical definition of 
the term Medium. In a sense of course anyone who 
has ever had a supernormal experience is a Medium ; 
but for practical purposes in this chapter I propose to 
limit the term to those people who in trance or 
otherwise receive communications purporting to 
come from the departed. As, however, there is a 
widespread prejudice against 'professional' Mediums, 
I shall exclude cases connected with Mediums who 
receive payment ; though I wish to state that it must 
not be assumed that I consider all professional 
Mediums to be dishonest and lraudulent. 

On the other hand it must be borne in mind that 
non-professional Mediums may be untrustworthy. 
Mr. Myers, writing of non-professional Mediums, 
(Proceedings Vol. VII.), says: — "Of course there 
may be many motives, other than pecuniary, which 
may prompt to trickery — a morbid or malicious 
desire to deceive ; abnormal states in which fraud is 
unconsciously practised : especially with children a 
desire to attract notice — and, quite apart from 
conscious or unconscious fraud, inaccuracy of obser- 
vation, or carelessness of record have often trans- 
formed very ordinary incidents into apparent 
marvels," 



MEDIUMS 69 

The lady known as Miss A., has already been 
referred to in the chapter on Crystal-gazing, and 
phenomena other than crystal visions, though closely 
connected with them, were mentioned. Miss A's 
supernormal powers were extraordinarily varied ; and 
it will be convenient to deal with them collectively in 
this chapter. Automatic writing played an important 
part, and was inextricably blended with communi- 
cations by raps, and with visions ; therefore I will 
commence this chapter with Miss A's own account of 
her automatic writing. This account is not only 
interesting in itself, but also is important as it 
reveals to some extent at least Miss A's personality, 
and thus enables the reader to form an opinion as to 
whether she was a person likely to be guilty of 
conscious, or unconscious fraud. 

Statement of Miss A. as to her Automatic 
Writing. 

1. Origin of writing. About eight years ago we 
first heard that people could sometimes write without 
knowing what they wrote ; and that it was supposed 
that departed friends could communicate in this way. 
We determined to try whether any of us could write 
thus. We tried first with a planchette, and when my 
mother's hand and my hand were upon it we got 
writing easily. We did not at first get any message 
professing to come from any spirit known to 
us. 

2. Mode of wyiting. We soon ceased to use the 
planchette, and I was able to write alone. I can 
now generally, but not always, write when I sit quiet 
with a pencil in my hand. The writing often comes 
extremely fast ; at a much faster rate than I could 
keep up by voluntary effort for so long a time. I 
have to turn over the pages of the large paper which 
I generally use, and to guard the lines of writing 



70 MEDIUMS 

from running into each other, but except for this 
there is no need for me to look at the paper, as I can 
talk on other subjects while the writing is going on. 
I can always stop writing by a distinct effort of will. 
One curious thing is that my hand is never in the 
least tired by automatic writing. 

3. Character of the Script. I get various hand- 
writings ; I may have had a dozen altogether. I 
may divide these simply into two classes. (A) Large 
and scrawly hands, which seem to aim at ease in 
writing, rather than at individuality, and do not 
divide their words, but run on without a break. 
Such are the hands of the so-called ' guides ' and of 
other ' spirits ' who write frequently. (Whatever the 
sources of this writing may be, I must use the terms 
which the writing uses, in order to avoid constant 
roundabout phrases). These large running hand- 
writings do differ somewhat both from my own 
handwriting and from each other ; but they most of 
them have a general resemblance to a large rapid 
scrawl of my own, with an alteration in the shape of 
some letters so as to avoid breaks in the continuous 
scrawl. I can almost always tell who is writing ; but 
there are differences in energy, in little details of 
management of the paper, etc., which help me to 
distinguish, even before the end of the message 
comes, when the signature shows me who has been 
writing. When the pronoun ' we ' is used there is no 
signature, as that represents ' the guides.' 

(B) There are also several handwritings which keep 
a strongly individual character, sometimes plainly of 
an assumed kind ; I mean writing in a way in which 
no one would have written in life. Thus John 
Longland wrote in an odd, twisted, serpentine way, 
and very small. We unluckily burnt all his writings 
except one scrap, as we did not believe he was a real 



MEDIUMS 71 

person. A spirit calling himself Detorno makes all 
the letters square. 

Then again when the guides are writing in reply 
to a private question put by some friend of mine, 
they write wrong side up, so that the friend sitting 
opposite me can read the writing and I cannot. 
They seem to write this way just as easily as the 
other. Sometimes there is mirror-writing. Some- 
times each word in a sentence is written backwards, 
beginning with the last letter of the last word. In a 
few cases only have we thought that the handwriting 
resembled what the supposed spirit wrote in life. 
This was especially so in the case of a communication 
claiming to come from my grandfather, whose hand- 
writing I had never seen. My mother produced an 
old signature of his, and certainly it was like ; but there 
was not enough of the automatic writing to make us 
quite sure. When the 'spirit' or 'control,' or what- 
ever it is, leaves me I cannot make it come again ; 
and writing from spirits known to us on earth is rare 
in comparison with writing from the ' guides,' or 
from quite unknown spirits giving fantastic names. 
Sometimes they give what they say were their real 
earth-names ; and then we can sometimes identify 
them ; although there is of course this difficulty, that if 
they are obscure we cannot find them ; or if they are 
well-known, people who give me credit for more 
knowledge of history than I possess, may think that 
I knew all about them, and that the messages come 
from my own mind. 

4. Drawings. — Sometimes my hand is moved to 
draw instead of write. The impulse in such cases is 
quite equally distinct. I never know what I am 
going to draw till the picture is half finished. My 
hand begins at odd, unexpected places ; for instance, 
with shading in a corner, or at the ear of a profile ; 



72 MEDIUMS 

and approaches the principal lines in a way which no 
artist would choose. There is no rubbing out or 
alteration of what is once done, but if whatever 
moves my hand does not like the picture, it suddenly 
scrawls it all over, and begins again on another piece 
of paper. Sometimes twenty or thirty pieces of 
paper have been spoilt in this way, — even when the 
picture was all but finished ; so that if I think that a 
picture is pretty I sometimes beg someone to take it 
away from under my hand for fear it should be 
scrawled on. I have no natural gift for drawing, and 
have only received a few lessons as a child. I could 
not even copy some of these automatic drawings. I 
have never of myself painted in oils, but sometimes I 
am moved to paint automatically in water-colour or 
oils. I put out a number of oil colours in a row, and 
my brush goes to them automatically and dabs one 
wet colour on the top of another, making a picture 
which is odd enough, but much less muddled than 
might be supposed ; in fact, artists have said that it 
was curious that a distinct picture could be produced 
in that way. When I paint thus there is no drawing 
or outline, only the brush-work. These drawings 
and pictures have a certain boldness and strangeness 
about them, but they are certainly not like the work 
of a regular artist. 

5. Connection of Written with Other Messages. — 
The writing sometimes explains or completes other 
phenomena, as, for instance, figures seen, or sentences 
begun by raps. Sometimes, on the other hand, raps 
will come when I wish to have writing. But the 
writing will hardly ever explain or allude to what 
really most needs explanation, namely, the crystal 
visions. The guides who write seem to know 
nothing about these visions. 

6. Subject of the Writing. — The great mass of 



MEDIUMS 73 

the writing consists of teaching, as to religion and 
philosophy. This is what my guides seem to wish to 
give, and it is strange that it should be so, as my 
own thoughts have not been directed to such matters. 
Another large part of the writing consists in a kind 
of fantastic description of the way in which the world 
was made. The name given with these writings is 
Gelalius. I suppose that this is a kind of romance. 
It is very different from anything that I should 
myself ever write or dream of, nor am I at all fond 
of reading romances of that kind. The writing 
professes to be copied from a book open at that 
particular chapter, and sometimes a passage will be 
continued weeks or months after the first part of it 
was written, as if the book had chanced to be open 
again at the same place. 

Some of the messages, however, deal with earthly 
matters. Some give general advice, some give 
medical advice, and some show a knowledge of things 
in the past or present which I do not possess. Some 
of these messages have been curiously right ; some 
have been partly right, but confused or interrupted ; 
and some have been wrong altogether. The sense of 
time seems confused, so that it is hard to say whether 
the incidents are meant to have happened long ago, 
or lately, or to be still in the future. Many of the 
messages we have not tested, as they were about 
things which did not interest us. Often, for instance, 
there would be messages about events in the news- 
papers which I had not thought or cared about. 

As to what I have called ' general advice,' I think 
that this has always been good when it related to the 
conduct of the automatic writing itself. I should be 
told, I mean, when to write and when not to write, 
and what people's presence was desirable, and so 
forth. The advice is often quite different from what 



74 MEDIUMS 

we wish ; — forbidding us to ask people whom we had 
desired to ask. There has been one very curious 
case where we were repeatedly told to ' send for ' a 
gentleman whom I will call Mr. C. D., of whom we 
knew nothing, except that we had seen his name in 
the papers in quite a different connection. It so 
chanced that a friend of ours knew Mr C. D. and 
brought him to see us, but for some years there 
seemed to be no particular result. Lately, however, 
Mr. C. D.'s presence has greatly helped the 
phenomena ; and the advice given so long ago has 
turned out important in a way which we could not 
possibly have foreseen. 

On matters not connected with these phenomena 
I should always carefully read what the writing told 
me, but I should not go by it unless it seemed 
sensible. It does not always advise either what I 
wish or what I think wise; but generally it is wiser 
than I. 

7. Medical Advice has often been given by a 
control calling himself ' Semirus,' and this has been 
often successful ; which is strange, since I am quite 
ignorant of medicine, and often do not know the 
names either of the diseases, or of drugs mentioned. 
Of course I cannot be quite sure that I have never 
read the words, but certainly when I have written 
them I have often not known what they meant. At 
other times the facts relating to the illness have been 
quite outside my knowledge. One friend has given 
an instance of this kind ; but I have not liked to ask 
others, as what Semirus says is generally meant for 
the questioner alone. 

8. Thought-Transference. — The writing occasion- 
ally, but not often, tells me of thoughts in the minds 
of persons present. One day a lady handed me a 
letter, in a handwriting which I did not know. I 



MEDIUMS 75 

held the letter in one hand and the other hand 
wrote, ' Bright metal, and brown earth.' The letter 
was from a gentleman whom I had never seen, and 
who had committed suicide by throwing himself on 
the rails in front of a railway engine. I think that 
the message came from thought-transference, as I do 
not find that merely holding letters in my hand tells 
me anything about their writers unless someone is 
there who knows the content ; and even then I so 
seldom succeed that I do not care to try experiments 
of this kind. 

9. Clairvoyance. — I sometimes get messages 
which perhaps may be called clairvoyant, telling me, 
for instance, where lost objects are, or warning me of 
some danger at hand. Thus about Sept. 20th, 1888, 
my sister M. and I had just finished dressing for 
dinner in the dressing rooms leading from a large 
bedroom. The maid had left the room. M. had left 
her dressing room, and was standing in the bedroom, 
when suddenly she called to me, ' Get a bit of paper ; 
there are some raps.' I came in and took an 
envelope and pencil and at once the words came, by 
raps : ' Look to the candle or the house will be on 
fire.' We saw that it was not the candle in the 
bedroom, so we went into M.'s dressing-room, and 
found that her candle was so close to a cardboard 
pocket depending from the looking glass, that it 
would have been on fire in a minute. It was already 
smoking. No servant would have come in for some 
time. 

Again I was descending a dark corkscrew staircase 
at Longford, in August or September, 1889, when I 
heard a rapping on the stair. It was persistent, and 
drew my attention. I looked about with a candle, 
and at last saw a gold pencil-case of Lady Radnor's, 
with which I was accustomed to write automatically, 



76 MEDIUMS 

lying on a dark little landing of the stair. I did not 
know that the pencil had been lost. 

10. But the most puzzling cases are those when 
the message professes to be from some departed 
person, and tells some true things, but perhaps 
mixes up some mistakes with them. ' Jack Creasey ' 
was a case of this kind. I certainly had not read 
any newspapers about his accident, and had no 
connection whatever with Greenwich and Deptford. 
I can see no link, and 1 do not know either why the 
message should have come at all, or why it should 
have come so confusedly. But sometimes I do think 
that the message really comes from the person who 
professes to communicate. 

Another frequent writer is a strange person to 
have come to us, as I knew nothing about him, and 
should not have thought that we had anything in 
common. That is Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. 
He — or whatever it is that takes his name — has 
become a sort of family friend. He has a distinct 
character of his own, which is not quite what I 
should have expected in a Lord Chancellor, for he 
is full of jokes and very bluff and outspoken. He 
has given a number of facts about himself, names of 
friends, and laws about marriage that he had made. 

One reason which makes me think that the 
messages come from outside myself is the feeling 
which I have sometimes of rivalry, or even conflict 
between them. And in one long case (John Black) 
there seemed to be spirits purposely trying to 
confuse each others' messages ; or perhaps one 
telling a story and others simply trying to prevent 
us from hearing it. 

Again if I see figures, and then have writing 
which professes to come from those figures, it seems 
to me natural to suppose that it does come." 



MEDIUMS 77 

On the 'John Black' (pseudonym) case Mr. 
Myers commented : — " According as stress is laid 
on one or other of its aspects it may be regarded as 
one of the weakest, or as one of the strongest items 
of our present evidence. Against it are the broad 
facts that the central story, if central story there be, 
never got itself told at all ; and there were numerous 
inaccuracies in the fragmentary stories which were 
told. . . In favour of the case is, first of all, the fact 
that the communications do not depend upon any 
one person. They are shared by Miss A. with four 
other members of her family, and with the gentleman 
here called Mr. B., who is known to me, and whom 
I regard as an excellent witness, although for official 
reasons, which seem to me adequate, he wishes his 
name to be concealed. 

Then again we have the mutually corroborative 
forms in which the message was conveyed, raps, 
sounds, visions, and writing. And finally besides 
the inaccurate or incredible statements, and closely 
mixed up with these, we have a considerable number 
of facts accurately given, and these facts of the 
oddest character. The impression left upon those 
who took part in these sittings was that they had 
here a fragmentary message, confused by the very 
conditions of its transmission, and its confusion 
worse confounded by some perverse or hostile 
agency ; but nevertheless, reflecting some true facts, 
known to one or more minds altogether distinct from 
those of the group who received the communication." 

The 'John Black' case is fully reported in S.P.R. 
Proceedings, Vol. IX, pages 84-92. I shall only 
attempt here to summarize the leading points. 

On Sunday Dec. 15th, 1889, Miss A., Mr. B., and 
apparently some others, "sat round a strong square 
table in a darkened room, and loud raps began 



78 MEDIUMS 

almost at once. Very shortly Miss A. saw the 
figure of a man lying on an ordinary hospital stretcher, 
and what appeared to be his double standing beside 
it. B. at the same time saw the standing figure." 
By raps they were told the name was ' John Black, 
of 2 Kendal Villas, Water Lane, Brixton, once dead 
through concussion of the spine. St. Bartholomew's." 
A low, indistinct voice spoke at the same time, and 
another figure appeared between Miss A. and B. 
' John Black ' then made reference to Gertrude 
Tryon, whose address could be obtained from Dr. 
Fyfe, 42 Montpellier Square. (On inquiry being made 
of Dr. Fyfe, whose address they verified through a 
directory, he replied that he thought he remembered 
the name Tryon, but could not find it in his books.) 

John Black said, 'It was I that forgot Gertrude 
when I had the accident. Pray find Gertrude and 
give her money to live on.' He said he had seen 
her last at Richmond ; and that he was travelling 
from Richmond when the accident occurred, and 
that the accident was on January 1st or December 
31st. When asked if Dr. Fyfe attended him after 
the accident, he replied, ' No — Symons.' A ' George 
Smith ' then said he wanted to help, and the ' guides ' 
said they thought Gertrude Tryon had been drowned. 

A telegram of inquiry was sent to the London 
police, asking for news of ' John Black,' and the 
following answer was received : — " Brixton. Head 
Constable. December 19th, 1889. 'John (Black) 
has been stopping at 2 Kendal Villas, Water-lane. 
Married Miss ' W.', occupier's daughter, Sunday last. 
Expected home next Sunday. Present address 
unknown." On December 20th a file of the Times 
was obtained and the following account of an accident 
on December 31st, 1888, was found in it. "The 
worst case was that of a Mr. (' Black ') of Brixton, 



MEDIUMS 7g 

who received such serious injuries that the doctor 
ordered his immediate removal to a hospital 
Mr. (Black) was taken to St. Bartholomew's 
Hospital where he now lies." The paragraph stated 
that the collision was between a L.C. and D train in 
Loughborough Junction going to Victoria and a L 
and S.W train from Richmond. A Dr. Simonds 
attended the injured. A telegram was then sent to 
the house surgeon, St. Bartholomew's Hospital and 
the following reply received :—" (Black) left 'nth 
January." (1889). J 

Five days later the following communication was 
received ; it was given partly by raps, and partly bv 
voice "The real John Black is here; this is me 
On January 7th I was compelled to leave the body 
of John Black. John Black, my body, was entered 
into by another. I now am bodiless, do you under- 
stand ? I and he are one. Two in one body I 
married Gertrude Tryon." On being asked if he 
had married Gertrude Tryon in Church, he replied 
No, I promised to marry her in January I was ' 

insensible for seven days, and when I came to 
myself I saw just the other in my body : I could not 
get back, so have no power to fulfil my promise ' 

Subsequent communications, much interrupted bv 
a spirit calling himself George Smith, appeared to 
indicate that Gertrude Tryon had tried to commit 
suicide by drowning herself in the Thames; that 
George Smith, or Long Jack, (said to be the same 
person), had pulled her out ; had helped her to 
murder her child, and had subsequently murdered 
her, and that either her child's body, or her own was 
concealed at "Willow-walk-in a shed-stabfe- 

^H r , Va K S; / i S kf ? rd ' S 7 ards -" Geor § e Sm *h was 
said to be dead also. Miss A. and B. together had 

a crystal vision which purported to be of Willow- 



80 MEDIUMS 

walk, and the yard in which she saw a young woman, 
apparently hiding. On March 14th, 1890, Miss A. 
went with a friend to Willow-walk, Bermondsey. 
After walking nearly down the whole street without 
finding anything like what she had seen, she suddenly 
recognised the grocery stores she had seen in the 
crystal. She could not find the archway, but went 
straight into the yard where Pickford keeps his vans 
and packs ; and after going some way she found the 
archway she had seen close by the landing place, and 
recognised it as having seen it in the crystal. 

Dr. A. T. Myers after some difficulty, succeeded in 
interviewing ' John Black ' some years later, and 
reported : — " He looked about 25 or 26 years of age. 
The eyeballs were slightly prominent, the pupils 
regular, equal, rather smaller than normal. He said 
he had never quite got over the accident. Since then 
he had been somewhat an altered man. He had had 
to do lighter work than that of a safe-maker, which 
was his business at the time of his accident. He had 
headaches at times and his sight was not so clear as 
before the accident. He remembered very little of 
the accident, or of the days he spent in hospital. 
He said in reply to my questions that he did not 
suffer from walking or talking in his sleep. He was 
very little inclined to be communicative, and in fact, 
rather suspicious as to the reasons of my visit." 

It is much to be regretted that a detective was not 
employed to investigate the past history of John 
Black ; and also to make inquiries concerning 
another somewhat similar case, that of Jack Creasy. 
On June 27, 1891, when writing automatically, Miss 
A. received a communication purporting to come 
from Jack Creasy, who stated he had lived at Green- 
wich, had worked at ' Abots' and also naming ' Black- 
wall Rode' He wrote : — ' Help pore Mary. Ask 



MEDIUMS 81 

after pore Jack Creasy's Mary.' He stated he had 
been burnt by a ' piche ketl ' ; and gave other 
details. 

Investigations proved that a man named Jack 
Creasy had worked in the tar-distilling works of 
Messrs Forbes, Abbot, and Lennard, Ordnance 
Wharf, Greenwich Marshes, the works being 
bounded on one side by Blackwall Lane; and had 
been killed there on July 4, 1889. The verdict of 
the Coroner's inquest gave as the cause of death, 
' Burns from ignition of vapour from a tar still.' 
Some of the details given in the automatic script 
were apparently untrue ; others were absolutely 
accurate. Jack Creasy's wife was not named Mary ; 
but there remains the possibility that a woman of 
that name may have been connected with, and 
dependent on him ; though it is unlikely that in- 
quiries made by members of S.P.R. would elicit such 
a fact, even though it might be well known by his 
fellow workmen. 

Lady Radnor wrote under date January 15th, 1893. 
— " The following case has always struck me as 
particularly curious. About 8 years ago, when Miss 
A.'s powers had only recently shown themselves, the 
automatic writing told her that I had two guides, 
' Estelle ' and ' Silvo,' — spirits who accompanied me 
and took an interest in my welfare. I did not think 
of this at first as a thing which could be either 
proved or disproved. But one day, when a question 
was mooted as to whether ' spirit guides ' had ever 
lived on earth, I asked whether mine had done so, 
and was told that ' Estelle ' had. I asked for her 
earth-name : and as we were then getting answers 
by raps (through Miss A.'s power), it was rapped out 
' Loved voices called me Anne.' I asked for the 
surname. ' C-H-Awas rapped out. As my maiden 
F 



82 MEDIUMS 

name was Chaplin I at once jumped to the con- 
clusion that that was the name meant. But the 
raps said ' No ' decidedly, and rapped out Chambers. 
I had no associations with the name. I asked if 
connected with the family ? ' Yes.' ' Any portrait ? ' 
' Yes.' ' At Blankney ? ' (my brother's place). 
1 Yes.' 

Now I had spent much of my childhood at 
Blankney, and I had been particularly fond of one 
picture, there, representing a lady whose name I did 
not know. It used to hang in the morning room, 
and then on the staircase, and represented a lady in 
a red velvet gown with a basket of cherries in her 
hand. As a child I used to sit and talk to this 
picture and make a friend of the lady with the 
cherries. So when I heard that the picture of my 
' guide ' was at Blankney I hoped it might be this 
lady, and asked, ' Is it the lady with the cherries ? ' 
' Yes,' was eagerly rapped out. I at once wrote to 
my old nurse who was still at Blankney, and who 
knew a great deal about the pictures ; and asked her 
to get the picture examined, for any name 
which might be on it. She got the picture taken 
down and carefully examined, but there was no 
clue. She told me, however, that she thought she 
had heard Mrs. S. — a connection of the family, who 
knew the pictures better than anyone — say that the 
lady with the cherries was a Miss Taylor. This 
disheartened me ; but I wrote to a friend at the 
College of Heralds to ask whether the name 
Chambers occurred anywhere in the Chaplin 
pedigree. He wrote back that there was no such 
name in the pedigree. 

The same day that I got his letter I happened to 
meet Mrs. S., (whom I had not seen for many years), 
in a shop in London. I knew that she had once 






MEDIUMS 83 

made a catalogue (which I had never seen), of the 
Blankney pictures ; so I felt that here was my last 
chance. I asked her if she knew who the lady with 
the cherries was. ' Oh, that is Lady Exeter,' she 
said, ' whose daughter Lady Betty, married an 
ancestor of yours.' • Do you know what Lady 
Exeter's maiden name was?' 'It was Mellish.' I 
now lost all hope, but I just asked ; ' Has the name 
Chambers any association for you ? ' ' How stupid I 
am!' she exclaimed, 'Lady Exeter was a Miss 
Chambers of Mellish ! ' My friend at the Heralds' 
College then looked in the Exeter pedigree, and, 
sure enough, the lady with the cherries was Hannah 
Chambers. 

H. M. Radnor." 

" I was cognisant of all this, and attest the 
accuracy of the account. 

Radnor." 

Sir Joseph Barnby, in his letter given in the 
chapter on Crystal-gazing, refers to a vision which 
Miss A. had in Salisbury Cathedral, when he was 
playing the organ. In Proceedings Vol. VIII., Lady 
Radnor writes : — " The first time Miss A. went to 
the Cathedral she noticed standing in the door of the 
chapel opposite the ' Cage ' (or Hungerford Chapel), 
a monk, dressed in a dull sort of muddy brown, with 
a knotted cord round his waist, a sort of tippet and 

hood. Subsequently she saw a good many of 

them apparently filing out of the door of the chapel, 
and back again, holding books and rosaries. The 
cross of the rosary was rather a peculiar shape. 

She has seen these monks nearly every time she 
has been to the Cathedral, and one gave his name 
by raps, but owing to the fact that the Bishop and 



84 MEDIUMS 

the head verger both said that no order of monks 
had ever been connected with the Cathedral, we 
thought perhaps it was a hallucination. Yesterday, 
however, February 23rd, 1890, Miss A. again saw 
the monks, and asked what Order they belonged to ; 
the answers were in raps. 

Q. : What order do you belong to? A.: St* 
Francis d'Assisi. Q. : Do you mean Franciscans ? 
A.: Yes Q. : Did you live here? A.: No. Q. : 
Where then ? A. : Palace. 

Having obtained this clue, on my return home 
I looked in Britton's History of Wiltshire, and found 
on an uncut page that there had been a Monastery 
of Greyfriars (Franciscans) at the S.E. corner of 
the Cathedral (where the Palace and the grounds 
now are), and that Bishop Poore gave them the 
land." 

In my opinion the mediumship of Miss A. has 
not received as much attention as it merits. The 
happenings to which Lady Radnor, Sir Joseph 
Barnby, and Mr. Myers bear witness are extraordin- 
arily difficult to explain away. In most of the cases 
the possibility of explanation by chance coincidence 
seems untenable. Either Miss A. did see visions of, 
and receive communications from, the deceased Lady 
Exeter, John Longland, the Friars of Salisbury, 
and Lord Strafford ; or she must have given up 
much time to the study of books, pedigrees, and 
manuscripts, and then with consummate skill re- 
produced the result of this study in feigned visions 
and automatic writing. Few people who read her 
simple and ingenuous account of her powers could 
believe her to be fraudulent. And even if this 
intuition of trustworthiness be disallowed as ' not 
evidence,' the possibility of undetected fraud seems 
most unlikely. For Miss A. was obviously a girl 



MEDIUMS 85 

living at home under the guarded and sheltered 
conditions of upper class girlhood in the Victorian 
era, and I should imagine it would have been well 
nigh impossible for her, not only to search for ancient 
documents, but also ' get up ' accurate details of 
modern incidents such as the John Black, and Jack 
Creasy cases, without the knowledge of her family. 
And if Miss A. saw visions and received supernormal 
communications ; then the denial that supernormal 
communications can be received is disproved. For, 
as Professor William James said in his Presidential 
address to S.P.R. — " A universal proposition can be 
made untrue by a particular instance. If you wish 
to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't 
seek to show that no crows are ; it is enough if you 
prove one single crow to be white." 

The following is a case of veridical communication 
summarised from the report in S.P.R. Journal, 
obtained by Colonel Taylor in a sitting with two 
friends of his whose names are known to S.P.R., but 
who wish to be called here Mrs. and Miss E. 

" Colonel Taylor sent us on December 13, 1902, a 
copy of his notes of the sitting, which are as follows : 

' June 20, 1902. Sat at 20 Hanover Square : 
(present Mrs. E., Miss E., and Colonel Taylor). 

We were informed that there were many strangers 
in the room who were trying to ' come in,' one in 
particular who began to try to control Miss E., he 
banged her hand on the table, made her whole arm 
numb, etc. He was chased away by our people 
once or twice, but returned. Miss E. then suggested 
that he should rather try to impress her mind with 
his likeness and condition than seek to control her 
body. The suggestion must have been taken, for in 
a few minutes Miss E. got the following clairvoyant 
impression. 



S6 MEDIUMS 

' A man, medium height, with broad shoulders, 
but thin,' he was wearing a grey suit of trousers, 
and, as Miss E. expressed it ' he is drawing my 
attention to his coat which is cut round.' The man 
had brown hair worn rather long, and had heavy 
and darker coloured eyebrows. Where his hair was 
drawn back off his forehead his temples were hollow, 
white, and delicate looking, with the veins showing 
blue through the skin ; his nose thin and aquiline, 
and his hands and feet particularly small. Then Miss 
E. by impression, got the information that he was 
a friend of Mr. Piddington's, had been in good circum- 
stances, but took a line that brought him to grief, 
Mr. Piddington had remonstrated with him, but he 
had given no heed. His death was not altogether 
unconnected with starvation. Miss E. then saw him 
stretched on a bed or something amidst very squalid 
surroundings." 

Mrs. E. reported : " Miss E. asked that the spirit 
should use her powers of clairvoyance and impress 
her with his appearance. By questions, to which 
the table tilted in reply, we had answer that the 
spirit was a man who had known Mr. Piddington. 
Gradually the medium was impressed with a man in 
rough grey light suit — medium height, coat rounded 
at the corners, which he held up for her observation. 
Broad in build, seemed to have small feet ; Miss E. 
said ' Show me your face, that is more to the point.' 
Hands looked small and delicate. ' Now that is 
better, I begin to see your face ' (Description as in 
Colonel Taylor's account). She could not see the 
whole of the face, whether there was a moustache or 
otherwise. ' No, I will not look at you laid out — did 
Mr. Piddington see you like that ? ' She laid her 
head on Mrs. E. to prevent the sight. ' I am im- 
pressed with a history, how far correct I do not know.' 



MEDIUMS 87 

Mr. Piddington seems to have had some knowledge 
of the course of life this man was going to pursue 
and warned him against it, but he would not listen 
to him ; it was unsuccessful, and he seems to have 
been in a state of starvation ; at least I get that 
impression, for he was laid out in the midst of squalor 
and want, and was too proud to ask for help.' Mr. 
Piddington, it was said, did not know that he had 
passed away ; and it had not been long since he did 
so.' 

The next day Colonel Taylor wrote to Mr. 
Piddington, giving the above details. On this letter 
Mr. Piddington noted as follows : " Received Monday, 
June 23, 9 a.m. It suggests Y.Z. to me, but so far as 
I know he is alive.' Mr. Piddington, later that same 
day wrote to Colonel Taylor : « On reading the 
account given in your letter I almost at once thought 
of a certain individual. At 11 a.m. I discovered 
that he died some months ago. I am absolutely 
certain that I had not heard of his death before. 
The description of the ' spirit's " personal appearance, 
and of his relations with me is not accurate in every 
detail ; but it is at least so accurate that it suggested 
Y.Z. and Y.Z. only to me. There are other things 
connected with this episode which make it very 
striking.' Later on in the year Mr. Piddington gave 
Colonel Taylor further information concerning Y.Z. 
' He was not a friend but a clerk of mine, and had 
been in the service of my firm many years. He was 
earning a goodish salary. . . I discovered that he 
had run into debt. . . I pa id his debts and refurnished 
his home, and warned him seriously that if he got 
into debt again I should dismiss him. . . Some 
months after I had paid Y.Z's. debts he decamped 
one fine morning, having robbed me of about £50. . . 
Into such straits did he fall that, unknown to me, 



88 MEDIUMS 

one of my porters gave him out of his wages 6d. a 
day — and I believe this was practically his only 
means of subsistence. He died at St. Saviour's 
Infirmary East Dulwich, on Nov. 14, 1901, one 
month after admission under an assumed name. . . 
It may be of some interest to you to learn that I 
inquired with which of the clerks in my city office 
Y.Z. had been most intimate, I was given the names 
of two men. One of these two men I had sent a 
short time before your sitting of June 20, to 20 
Hanover Square with a message. From a spiritual- 
istic point of view this might be held to explain the 
intrusion of the spirit.' 

Miss E. had not been able to obtain any impression 
respecting the "spirit's" mouth and chin. When 
Mr. Piddington knew Y.Z. he had a beard. But the 
nurse who had charge of him in the Infirmary stated 
that he did not wear a beard during the time he was 
there. Concerning this Colonel Taylor notes ' I 
think a spirit who would give a medium an impression 
of his personal appearance must have a very clear 
idea of it himself ; and that in the present case this 
clearness may not have existed about his chin, 
because he had altered his appearance in this respect 
shortly before his death.' 

The nurse said that Y.Z. was constantly asking 
if he would recover, and she always made the same 
reply, although she knew the case was hopeless ; 
namely, " If you'll only eat you'll get better." 
Although all kinds of invalid foods and luxuries 
were given to tempt his appetite, he couldn't eat. 
So Y.Z. may reasonably have supposed that starvation 
did play some part in causing his death ; though the 
actual cause was consumption." 

The following case was carefully investigated 
within a month of its occurrence by Dr. Hodgson, and 



MEDIUMS 89 

so far as he could discover, the account (from a local 
paper), here given was accurate. 

"On February 2nd, (1891) Michael Conley, a 
farmer living near Ionia, Chicksaw County, was 
found dead in an outhouse at the Jefferson house. 
He was carried to Coroner Hoffman's morgue, where, 
after the inquest, his body was prepared for shipment 
to his late home. The old clothes he wore were 
covered with filth from the place where he was found, 
and they were thrown outside the morgue on the 
ground. 

His son came from Ionia and took the corpse 
home. When he reached there, and one of the 
daughters was told that her father was dead, she 
fell into a swoon, in which she remained for several 
hours. When at last she was brought from the 
swoon, she said, ' Where are father's old clothes ? 
He has just appeared to me dressed in a white shirt, 
black clothes, and felt slippers, and told me that 
after leaving home he sewed a large roll of bills 
inside his grey shirt with a piece of my red dress, 
and the money is still there.' In a short time she 
fell into another swoon and when out of it demanded 
that somebody go to Dubuque and get the clothes. 

" The entire family considered it only a hallucina- 
tion, but the physician advised them to get the 
clothes, as it might set her mind at rest. The son 
telephoned Coroner Hoffman asking if the clothes 
were still in his possession. He looked and found 
them in the backyard. . . The young man arrived 
last Monday afternoon and told Coroner Hoffman 
what his sister had said. Mr. Hoffman admitted 
that the lady had described the identical burial garb 
in which her father was clad, even to the slippers, 
although she had never seen him after death, and 
none of the family had seen more than his face 



90 MEDIUMS 

through the coffin lid. Curiosity being fully aroused, 
they took the grey shirt from the bundle, and within 
the bosom found a large roll of bills sewed with a 
piece of red cloth. The young man said his sister 
had a red dress exactly like it. The stitches were 
large and irregular, and looked to be those of a 
man. The son wrapped up the garments and took 
them home with him yesterday morning." 

Mr. Myers commented : — " If we may accept the 
details of this narrative, which seems to have been 
carefully and promptly investigated, we find that 
the phantasm communicates two sets of facts ; one 
of them known only to strangers (the dress in 
which he was buried), and one known only to 
himself, (the existence of the inside pocket and the 
money therein)." 

The next case is interesting : — 

"February 9th, 1899. While the circumstances 
herein related occurred long ago, they are among 
the most vivid recollections of my youth ; the 
witnesses were intelligent and competent, and no 
trick or deception was possible. . . . 

"It was about 1857 • • • tnat we began to hear 
of table-rappings, and other manifestations, which 
were taking place at the houses of various people. 
Now there lived in the neighbourhood a young 
woman of blameless character, whose name was 
Miss Louisa L. She lives in the same parish of 
Louisiana to-day, and is married and teaching 
school. This Miss L. was the 'medium' in the 
neighbourhood. Miss L. was not a professional 
' medium.' 

" One day this young lady was visiting at my 
grandfather's, and a seance was held there. Quite 
a number were present. A message was received 



MEDIUMS 91 

addressed to my grandfather, who just then did 
not happen to be in the house. The wording of the 
message was to this effect : ' Do you remember 
when I went from the card-table, and committed 
suicide ? ' The message was signed by a name 
totally unknown to anybody present. My grand- 
father finally came into the house, and was im- 
mediately shown the communication, and asked if 
he had known the author. He read it, and ex- 
claimed in great astonishment and consternation, 
' Yes, by the Lord Harry, I knew him well.' He 
then related how, very many years before that time,* 
he was travelling with the party whose name was 
signed to the message, on a Mississippi or Red 
River steamboat, and how, while a game of cards 
was going on, the said party went out and killed 
himself. Now the ' medium ', incontestably, had 
never heard of the man whose name was signed to 
the message, and he was unknown to any one in 
the house, except my grandfather. . . I certify to 
the correctness of the foregoing, and beg to subscribe 
myself, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

W. L. B., Ph. D." 



CHAPTER V 

TRANCE MEDIUMS 

" Trance is a name applied to a form of motor 
automatism, whether healthy or morbid, in which 
the automatist appears to be in some way altered, 
or even asleep, but in which he may speak or write 
certain matter of which his normal personality is 
ignorant at the time, and which it rarely remembers 
on his return to waking life. If there appears to be 
not merely a modification but a substitution of 
personality in the trance, it is called possession. 
Trance occurs spontaneously in so-called somnam- 
bulism ; as a result of disease in hysteria ; and as a 
result of suggestion, etc, in hypnotic states. A fuller 
analysis shows classes which slide into each other 
in various ways. 

i. The trance may be simulated and the 
utterances fraudulent ; the facts which they contain 
having been previously learnt, or being acquired at 
the time by a ' fishing ' process. This is usually the 
case with professional clairvoyantes. 

2. The trance may be genuine, but morbid ; and 
the utterances incoherent or in other ways degenera- 
tive, even when showing memory or accuracy greater 
than the normal. This is the case in hysteria, so- 
called demoniacal possession, etc. . . 



J 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 93 

3. The trance may be genuine and healthy, and 
the utterances coherent, but containing no actual fact 
unknown to the automatist. This is sometimes the 
case in hypnotic trance. . . 

4. The trance may be genuine and healthy, and 
the utterances may contain facts not known to the 
automatist, but known to other persons present, and 
thus possibly reached by telepathy ; or existent 
elsewhere, and thus possibly reached by telaesthesia. 

5. The trance may be genuine and healthy, and 
the utterances may contain facts not previously 
known to the subject, nor always known to the 
observers, but verifiable, and such as might probably 
be included in the memory of certain definite 
deceased persons, from whom they profess to come. 
This form of trance may suggest a temporary sub- 
stitution of personality." 

The above is quoted from a paper by Mr. Myers, 
Proceedings XVII. 

Mr. Myers next gives very full details respecting 
Mrs. Thompson, who had never been a professional, 
or paid medium, being the daughter of an architect, 
and wife of a London merchant. Mr. Myers writes : — 
" I have known Mr. and Mrs. Thompson intimately 
since 1898 : and they have agreed with me that it is 
the clear duty of persons possessed of supernormal 
powers to keep an accurate record of phenomena, 
and to publish so much of that record as may be 
possible, with serious care. For what follows there- 
fore I claim entire genuineness. Mrs. Thompson, I 
would add, is an active, vigorous, practical person : 
interested in her household and her children, and in 
the ordinary amusements of young English ladies, as 
bicycling, and the theatre. She is not of morbid, nor 
of specially reflective or religious temperament. No 



94 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

one would think of her as the possessor of super- 
normal gifts." 

Mr. Myers continues : — " Mrs. Thompson some- 
times writes automatically, in a waking state. But 
such writing is generally produced during a brief 
period of sleep or trance. There will be an impulse 
to write, followed almost at once by unconsciousness ; 
and scrawls more or less legible will be found on 
awaking. But the most frequent form of communi- 
cation is by speech in trance : intermingled with 
occasional writing, and claiming to come from some 
definite spirit who 'controls.' 

The entry into the trance is swift and gentle. As 
a rule there is a mere closure of the eyelids as in 
sudden sleep. The impression made on the observer 
is that the trance is as natural as ordinary sleep. 
The actual sittings are of the simplest type. I bring 
an anonymous stranger into a room where Mrs. 
Thompson is, and we simply await her trance. I 
sometimes ask my anonymous friend to remain silent, 
(if, for instance, his accent should give some clue to 
nationality) ; or else we talk together on trivial topics 
until Mrs. Thompson's light trance supervenes — 
with no external symptom except a closing of the 
eyes and certain slight differences of manner. It does 
not matter where the visitor sits, nor is any contact 
desired. There is no ' fishing ' for information. I 
usually converse myself with the ' control,' and in 
some of the best sittings I have [been as ignorant as 
Mrs. Thompson herself of the family history, etc., of 
the sitter." 

But before proceeding to give further details con- 
cerning sittings with Mrs Thompson, it is necessary 
to say something on the subject of her controls. 

When a Medium becomes unconscious another 
personality ostensibly speaks with her lips, writes 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 95 

with her hand, answering questions put by the sitter ; 
and also claims to introduce, and describe, departed 
spirits connected with the sitter. There is usually a 
principal control, and also others who assist occasion- 
ally. Opinions differ, even amongst those who be- 
lieve that communications from the departed are 
obtained through mediums, as to whether the controls 
are, as they claim to be, separate entities, or some 
kind of secondary personalities of the medium. 

In the case of Mrs. Thompson the principal con- 
trol is Nelly, a deceased child of the Medium, with a 
childish outlook upon things in general, and also it 
may be said, something of the impish fascination of 
an ordinary human child. Mr. Piddington writes of 
Nelly, (Proceedings XVIII), "Nelly is no glum 
archangel ; she never displays any consciousness of 
being engaged on a serious mission, nor indulges in 
prayer, pious ejaculations, or sanctimonious discourse; 
and is, in fact, a downright, unsentimental, debonnair 
being. So far as my experience goes Nelly plays by 
far the most important role in Mrs. Thompson's 
trances. Of the other regular control, Mrs. Cart- 
wright, I have seen but little. . . . Mrs. Cartwright is 
supposed to be the spirit of a lady who was the 
proprietress of the school where Mrs. Thompson was 
educated. As represented in the trance, she is the 
typical school-dame of caricature. . . . Yet in spite of 
creating this effect of being a mechanical puppet, this 
trance-personality aroused in me such feelings as one 
would suppose could only result from intercourse 
with a human being. Foolish as such a confession 
may seem, I must in justice to the qualities of this 
control admit that she irritated me to so great an 
extent with her verbosity and pomposity that I was 
heartily thankful when she didn't put in an appear- 
ance. . . . Yet if Nelly is not a mere secondary 



96 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

personality, no more can Mrs. Cartwright be ; for 
Nelly has no doubts about the reality of Mrs. 
Cartwright, and so to speak, vouches for her." 

In fact Nelly and Mrs. Cartwright often alternated 
in controlling at the same sitting ; on one occasion 
Mr. Piddington records : — " From this point to the 
end of the sitting Mrs. Cartwright and Nelly spoke 
by turns, and a most amusing scene ensued, Mrs. 
Cartwright casting reflections on Nelly's way of doing 
her work, and Nelly bobbing in and out to mimic 
Mrs. Cartwright's pompous and platitudinous manner 
and diction, and to complain of her dictatorial airs. 
Nelly as usual wound up the sitting, and put in a 
parting shot : — " Mrs. Cartwright thinks I'm illiterate. 
' She always thought life not worth living, if you 
weren't obeyed.' Mrs. Cartwright says I'm to come 
before I talk ' insipid nonsense ' (mimicking Mrs. 
Cartwright's voice and accent). Her compliments 
come thick and fast." 

It is to be feared that Mr. Piddington encouraged 
Nelly in her disrespectful attitude towards Mrs. Cart- 
wright : he records with unholy joy the following 
tale against that precise lady : " Mr. Myers asked 
what had first interested Mrs. Cartwright in the 
subject of spirit communication, and she replied, ' I 
abhorred the subject of Spiritualism when on earth. 
Yet I could not help thinking about it, and I made 
up my mind that the first thing I would do on the 
other side was to see whether there was any truth in 
it, and then, if possible come back and tell people it 
was all nonsense.'" Mr. Piddington comments, " Mrs 
Cartwright's meaning is clear enough, but her manner 
of expressing it suggests that she must have had 
more than a drop of Irish blood in her veins." 

Mrs. Verrall, writing on Mrs. Thompson's trances 
{Proceedings XVTI) says " I have received com- 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 97 

munications from three" (controls), "Nelly Mrs 
Cartwnght and a personal friend whom I have called 
Mrs. B. The characteristics of the respective person- 
alities are not very marked; all bear strong resem- 
blances to that of Mrs. Thompson herself. But 
m spite of the absence of distinctive traits, there is a 
marked individuality about each of the three person- 
alities which makes it quite impossible to confuse them 
with one another or with Mrs. Thompson It is no 
more possible to mistake Nelly for Mrs. Thompson, or 
Mrs. Cartwnght for either, than it is to mistake one 
living person for another. The first words of Mrs 
Cartwnght or Nelly, though preceded by no change 
10 Mrs Thompson s manner, attitude, or gesture, show 
instantly and unmistakably who claims to be com- 
municating with the sitter. . . . The two personalities 
of Nelly and Mrs. Cartwright . . . make the same 
impression as would two actual human beings with 
whom one had a normal acquaintance ; you may like 
one better than the other, you may recognise their 
merits and their limitations, but it never occurs to 
you to doubt their independent existence " 

But it must not be inferred from the above that 
Mrs .Veri-all and Mr Piddington were convinced 
that Nelly and Mrs. Cartwright were independent 
entities, and not merely subdivisions of Mrs 
Thompson's personality. Mrs. Verrall wrote ■— " Of 
the question of the independent existence and inter- 
dependence of the various trance personalities I do 
not propose to treat in this paper." And Mr 
Piddington wrote:-" I think I ought to state what 
my view of these phenomena is. 
" No theory of them satisfies me. 
" Thus negatively only can I state my view. . I 
do not halt bet\*een two opinions, but I shilly-shally 
between many." 



98 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

There can be no question that Nelly knew many 
more details respecting the relations and friends of 
sitters than Mrs. Thompson in her normal state had 
any knowledge of. Mrs. Verrall writes : — " In what 
was practically my first sitting with Mrs. Thompson 
Nelly gave me a series of descriptive touches of a 
dead lady with whom I was intimately acquainted, 
all of which were truly characteristic and familiar ; 
but they were not the leading traits in this lady's 
personality, the points on which I should have 
seized had I wished to recall her to a third person. 
Nor was my attention fixed on this particular friend 
at the beginning, for I had given the sensitive a 
small hair cross and was expecting information about 
the owner. But the statements of Nelly were 
definite and accurate, referring to small details of 
dress, — among other things saying that my friend 
wore a black silk apron trimmed with lace fastened 
by an elastic and button round the waist, that this 
apron had belonged to someone else before her, (the 
lady had often told me that it was her mother's), and 
that she folded it in a particular way. Nelly also 
described correctly the lady's objection to the low- 
necked frocks which my child wore as a baby, and 
imitated a habit she had of pulling up the child's 
under-vest, to cover her bare neck. She further 
successfully reproduced a facial trait of this lady, a 
characteristic movement of the lips, and finally 
described her as puzzled at the situation, doubtful as 
to the truth of Nelly's statements that I was really 
present — all this very characteristic." 

It has been frequently debated how mediums are 
able to describe in minute detail the personal 
appearance and characteristic gestures of deceased 
persons whom they most certainly never saw alive. 
Mrs. Thompson appears to have given many such 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 99 

descriptions with remarkable accuracy and life-like 
detail. The impression left upon my mind after 
reading the notes of these descriptions is that Mrs. 
Thompson saw exactly what she described, viz. 
the deceased person alive upon earth in his or her 
accustomed mundane environment. That is to say 
she saw a vision, (similar to those seen by Miss A. 
in the crystal, also without it, as in the case of 
John Longland), of Mrs. Verrall's friend when 
alive, pulling up the baby's vest. It appears 
impossible to account for such accuracy of detail as 
being a mere chance coincidence. It may have 
been telepathy from Mrs. Verrall's subconscious self; 
but if so I suggest that the telepathic impression 
was conveyed in the form of a vision. 

If mediums by telepathic influence see visions of 
persons in normal earthly environments, the fact 
that a medium often professes uncertainty whether the 
person seen is alive or dead would be accounted for. 
A crystal vision may be of a past, a contemporaneous 
or a future event ; the scryer does not necessarily know 
which. We have seen that Miss A. stated, 
" I cannot tell if what I am seeing is past, present, 
or future." If the vision be of a past event some of 
the persons seen in it may be dead, and others may 
be alive. But the scryer naturally describes the 
vision as contemporaneous ; and it will be noted 
that Lady Radnor stated that Miss A. des- 
cribed her visions " not as if she saw them in a 
picture, but as if she were actually there, and the 
people and places were round her." Just so do 
trance mediums describe persons and things. Miss 
A.'s clear definition of her powers and their 
limitations explains many points in connection with 
trance mediums. 

Telepathy from the sitter is certainly an important 



ioo TRANCE MEDIUMS 

factor in all stances. That Nelly was aware of 
thoughts which passed through the sitter's brain 
seems to be a matter of fact, and not merely a theory. 
Mrs. Verrall writes: — "The cases are not very 
numerous, but the response from the ' control ' to 
what has been thought, but not uttered, by me has 
been so rapid and complete that, were it not for the 
evidence of the other sitter, I should have been 
disposed to believe that I had unconsciously uttered 
my thoughts aloud." 

" Thus on one occasion Nelly said that a red- 
haired girl was in my house that day : I was 
wondering whether a certain friend of my daughter's 
who is often at the house would be there, when 
Nelly added, ' Not Lilian,' exactly as though I had 
uttered the passing thought." 

On another occasion, when Nelly spoke of an 
operation, I remembered that my cousin had died 
of cancer, but had had no operation, and as I thought 
this, Nelly went on to say, ' Not cancer.' 

But there are cases in which Nelly stated facts 
which the sitter did not know, and had never known ; 
though subsequent inquiry proVed them to be 
accurate. On one occasion Mrs. Verrall produced 
at a sitting a locket which, she says : " I believed to 
have belonged to my youngest sister, who had died 
as a young child. There had been three exactly 
similar lockets, containing my grandmother's hair, 
given to, myself and my two sisters, and after my 
little sister's death my mother carried her locket on 
her watch chain. After my mother's death, my 
sister, hearing that I had lost the hair out of my own 
locket, gave me hers, keeping the one that had 
belonged to my little sister and my mother. But I 
had misunderstood her, and thought that it was 
this one that I had, and was taking to Mrs. Thompson. 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 101 

After saying that the locket was not mine, Nelly 
gave a short description of the lady to whom it had 
belonged, which was wholly inapplicable to my 
mother, though appropriate to my (surviving) sister. 
I had consequently reckoned the statement as in- 
correct, and it was only on mentioning the matter 
to my sister that I found that I had been mistaken, 
and that Nelly's account of the previous ownership 
of the locket was, as far as it went, more accurate 
than my own." 

A somewhat similar case is recorded by Mr. 
Piddington, {Proceedings XVIII), when Mrs. Benson, 
widow of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, was 
the sitter. Mrs. Benson had brought with her a 
brooch packed up and sealed by Miss Margaret 
Benson, who was then ill. Mrs. Benson wrote, " The 
brooch belongs to my daughter. It was put together 
by the nurse of the whole family while she was 
living with my mother before I married. It contains 
the hair of my mother and my three brothers and 
myself, as well as that of a brother and sister who 
died as children. . . My daughter had taken the 
brooch out of a red silk-lined dressing case and 
wrapped it up. When I saw it unwrapped in the 
medium's hand I mistook it for another brooch which 
I myself possess, which was not in a rosewood box." 

As soon as the fingers of the Medium touched the 
parcel Nelly exclaimed " The person who wrapped 
this up was ill." And then she continued : — 
" Mother's brooch. This was her brooch and belonged 
to more than one generation — a lady — two children 
died — her own hair and two dead children's made 
into a brooch. The lady seems to be the third 
generation — grandmother, mother, grandchildren." 
Then after giving some correct details respecting 
Miss Benson's illness, Nelly stated that she, i.e. Miss 



102 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

Benson had been disturbed by the wind banging 
something the night before she packed the brooch, 
and then continued : — " The lady that has this brooch 
was next generation. There was a workbox — rose- 
wood workbox — little silk places where you keep 
silks and ribbons." Mrs. Benson comments " The 
wind was so high the night before my daughter 
packed it up that for the first time during a fortnight's 
illness the shutters were barred all night. N.B. — I 
did not know this at the time of the seance. . . Rose- 
wood dressing case from which brooch was taken 
belonged to my daughter's sister's godmother. 
After a hunt for brooch it was found in a drawer in 
the dressing case, the only one which was lined with 
red silk." 

There is no suggestion here that the information 
given by Nelly was received from deceased persons ; 
the details of Miss Benson's illness might be obtained 
telepathically from Mrs. Benson ; but the identity 
of the brooch, and the detail of a windy night having 
preceded the packing, were unknown to Mrs. Benson. 
If obtained telepathically, it must have been indirect 
telepathy from Miss Benson, who was not present ; 
though probably she had been thinking of the sitting. 
Or it may have been a case of direct clairvoyance. 

But though there is perhaps no instance in which 
communication with a deceased person can be 
pronounced absolutely certain, there are a few cases 
in which the sitters were for the moment at any rate, 
convinced that such was the case. Mr. Piddington 
records that on January nth, 1901, a few months 
after the death of Professor Henry Sidgwick, " The 
Sidgwick control made its first appearance, and, 
though the words spoken were few, the voice, manner 
and style of utterance were extraordinarily lifelike : 
so much so indeed that, had I been ignorant of 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 103 

Professor Sidgwick's death and had happened to 
hear the voice without being able to tell whence it 
was issuing, I think I should have unhesitatingly 
ascribed it to him." 

And again on January 21st — "The Sidgwick 
control then took Nelly's place, and again the 
impersonation was most extraordinarily lifelike. 
The only two occasions on which I have been 
hnotionne, or have experienced the slightest ieeling 
of uncanniness during a spiritualistic seance, or have 
felt myself in danger of being carried away, were 
during these two manifestations of the Sidgwick 
control. I felt that I was indeed speaking with, and 
hearing the voice of, the man I had known ; and the 
vividness of the original impression has not faded 
with time," 

Dr. van Eeden, of Bussum, Holland, who obtained 
from Mrs. Thompson details respecting his environ- 
ment in Holland which he felt sure could not be 
attributed to chance coincidence, wrote : — 

" How can we eliminate the possibility of im- 
posture? The possibility of fraud seemed untenable. 
I got information about objects whose origin was 
known only by myself. I brought a lock of hair of 
a man who had lived and died at Utrecht, and the 
hair was immediately connected with that name, and 
on subsequent occasions referred to as the 'Utrecht 
hair,' I brought a piece of clothing that had 
belonged to a young man who had committed suicide. 
Nobody in the ivorld knew that I had kept it, nor 
that I had taken it to England with me for this 
purpose, and yet I got an exact description of the 
young man and the manner of his suicide, and even 
his Christian name was given. For me this excluded 
all fraud or coincidence. . . The choice between 
spirits and telepathy remains. . . The young man 



io 4 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

who had committed suicide gave as proofs of his 
identity Dutch names of places and persons which 
were not at all in my mind at the moment. This 
might have been unconscious telepathy. At the 
same time proper names were given which I had 
never heard myself. I did not even know such 
names existed. Yet later, in Holland, I came across 
people who bore these very names, though their 
connection (if any) with the young man I could not 
find out. But what value could they have in proof 
of identity ? Could we not always say that the 
medium, being clairvoyant, had seen these names 
somehow in connection with the young man, and so 
used them to complete the vraisemb lance of her 
creation ? 

" As a very curious observation I may relate the 
following : The young man, as mentioned in the 
notes of my sittings, had recovered from his first 
attempt at suicide, but the wound in his throat left 
his voice hoarse and gave him a peculiar little cough. 
As soon as I came near Mrs. Thompson with the 
piece of clothing, her voice became more or less 
hoarse, and by and by the same peculiar little cough 
appeared, and grew more accentuated at each 
subsequent sitting. After three sittings it kept on at 
intervals between the sittings, and in the end did 
not leave her altogether until I had left England 
taking with me the piece of clothing — a flannel vest." 

Dr. van Eeden then goes on to say that his opinion 
has varied as to the origin of the communications 
made through Mrs. Thompson, and concludes : — 
" Here I think I may make a definite and clear 
statement of my present opinion which has been 
wavering between the two sides for a long time. . . 
At this present moment it is about eight months 
since I had my last sitting with Mrs. Thompson in 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 105 

Paris, and yet, when I read the notes again, it is 
impossible for me to abstain from the conviction that 
I have really been a witness, were it only for a few 
moments, of the voluntary manifestation of a deceased 
person." 

I am of course aware that the subjective impressions 
of Mr. Piddington and Dr. van Eeden are not 
scientific proof that they received communications 
directly from deceased persons. But I do claim that 
such evidence would have weight, and be considered 
of importance, in a trial for murder by judge and 
jury ; and that the verdict of ' guilty ' or ' not guilty ' 
has often been largely influenced by the impressions 
of reliable witnesses. 

A case which certainly contains some circumstantial 
evidence, extremely difficult to explain away, is the 
following : — 

During a sitting with Mrs. Thompson, Nelly said 
to Mr. Piddington, ' I get an influence connected 
with the lady at your house named Dorothy.' 

As far as Mr. Piddington then could remember 
there was no one in his house of that name : but 
when he returned home he discovered that a hospital 
nurse, who had arrived there the previous evening, 
was called Sister Dorothy. He may have been told 
her name before she arrived, but had totally forgotten 
it. 

About two months later, some time after the 
nurse had left Mr, Piddington's house, Nelly reverted 
to the subject, and said she had a message for Sister 
Dorothy from a little dead brother, ' We call him 
Bob — Bobby. He's got something wrong with him 
in the neck and ear, and it made his head a little bit 
sideways.' 

Mr. Piddington continues, " I wrote to Sister 
Dorothy to enquire if there were any truth in this 



106 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

statement, her reply was to this effect : that she had 
no dead brother named Bobby, but she remembers 
a little boy in her hospital of that name, rather a pet 
of hers who had a diseased bone in his neck. The 
neck was kept between sandbags, and this in time 
made his ears sore." 

Nelly was always hazy in the extreme respecting 
relationships, and in this case may have considered 
that as Bobby spoke of Dorothy as ' sister,' he 
himself must necessarily be her ' brother.' In all 
other details Nelly's statement was absolutely correct. 
If she didn't obtain the information from the deceased 
Bobby, from what source could she have obtained it ? 
The burden of proof here rests with the sceptic. 

It appears to me very singular that in the many 
discussions on the subject of trance mediums no 
attempt has been made to compare their powers with 
Miss A.'s mediumistic powers out of trance, as the 
latter throw much light upon the former. 

The case I give next has many points of similarity 
with the visions of Miss A. ; it is given by Mr. 
Piddington. {Proceedings XVIII). Mrs. Thompson's 
own account, written at the request of Mr. 
Piddington, is as follows : — 

"May 24th, 1900. 

On Monday, May 7th, 1900, about 7.30 in the 
evening, I happened to be sitting quite alone in the 
dining-room, and thinking of the possibility of my 
'subliminal' communicating with that of another 
person — no one in particular. I was not for one 
moment unconscious. All at once I felt some one 
was standing near, and quickly opened my eyes, and 
was very surprised to see — clairvoyantly of course — 
Mr. J. G. Piddington. 

" I was very keen to try the experiment ; so at 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 107 

once spoke to him aloud. He looked so natural and 
life-like I did not feel in the least alarmed. 

" I commenced : — 

" Please tell me of something I may afterwards 
verify to prove I am really speaking to you." 

" J.G.P. — 'I have had a beastly row with ' — (naming 
a specified person). 

" R.T.— ' What about ? ' (No answer to this). 

" J.G.P. — ' He says he did not intend to annoy me, 
but I said he had been very successful in doing so, 
whether he intended to or not.' 

"After saying this he disappeared, and I began to 
wonder whether there was any truth in what I had 
heard from — what appeared to me to be — Mr. 
Piddington. I did not like to write and ask him if 
it was so. On May 24th I had an opportunity of 
telling him, and was very surprised to hear it was 
the truth. 

" I also told him I had guessed at the subject of the 
' beastly row.' My conjecture was quite accurate. 
(Signed) Rosalie Thompson. 

" P.S. — People often ask me how I talk with Nelly : 
just as I talked with Mr. Piddington on May 7th. 
I seem to see and feel what they are saying. The 
lips appear to move, but they make no audible 
sound. Yet unless / speak aloud they do not seem 
to understand me. I have tried Nelly when she 
appears to me by asking mental questions, but she 
does not understand unless I speak aloud and very 
clearly. 

R.T." 

Mr. Piddington comments, "It was this experience 
of Mrs. Thompson's which compelled my belief in 
her supernormal powers. At the time I saw no way 



108 TRANCE MEDIUMS 

of getting round it and I see no way now. But to 
my great regret I do not feel myself at liberty to 
disclose all the circumstances. The case must 
accordingly lose much of its evidential value, and I 
therefore cannot hope that it will produce on others 
the same conviction that it has on myself." Mr. 
Piddington, however, explains with some detail the 
utter impossibility of Mrs. Thompson obtaining 
information of the ' beastly row ' by normal means, 
and mentions that in a letter his adversary had said 
that ' he had not intended to annoy me ' : and that 
he had observed on reading it, ' Then he succeeded 
admirably without intending to.' 

Mr. Piddington then continues : — " But it is not 
only the veridicality of the vision, but also the form 
of it which deserves attention. 

" With eyes open and experiencing no conscious 
lapse of consciousness Mrs. Thompson sees and 
cross-examines a phantasm of the living. The 
phantasm refuses to answer one question, and after 
it has vanished the percipient guesses — consciously 
guesses — makes a shot at — the answer, and guesses 
right. Was this mere dramatisation ? or do we here 
get a hint of a combination of processes which may 
play a great part in clairvoyant phenomena ? that 
is, a combined exercise of supernormal faculty and 
of normal inference, either from facts previously 
known or from knowledge just supernormally 
received ? 

•' It seems to me now, and it seemed to me at the 
time, that it is just possible that when once Mrs. 
Thompson had learnt that I had had a ' beastly row,' 
and that that row had been between myself and a 
certain person, she might by a lucky shot have hit 
on the subject of the row. 

" Is there, though, something more than this ? I 



TRANCE MEDIUMS 109 

fancy there may be. Something, namely, that 
confirms the correctness of the deduction normally 
arrived at. Thus I imagine that though Mrs. 
Thompson may through the exercise of her 
ordinary mental faculties have guessed at the subject 
of my quarrel, some other faculty was called into 
play to confirm the truth of the inference ; and 
whatever that other suppositional faculty is, I 
conceive that it is akin to telepathy, and super- 
normal." 

Mrs. Verrall at the conclusion of her paper on 
Mrs. Thompson's trance phenomena {Proceedings 
XVII, 217) writes as follows : — 

"It is not my intention in this paper to express 
any opinion on the general character of the 
phenomena presented by Mrs. Thompson. . . 
That Mrs. Thompson is possessed of knowledge not 
normally obtained I regard as established beyond a 
doubt ; that the hypothesis of fraud, conscious or 
unconscious on her part, fails to explain the 
phenomena, seems to me equally certain ; that to 
more causes than one is to be attributed the success 
which I have recorded seems to me likely. There 
is, I believe, some evidence to indicate that telepathy 
between the sitter and the trance personality is one 
of these contributory causes. But that telepathy 
from the living, even in an extended sense of the 
term, does not furnish a complete explanation of the 
occurrences observed by me, is, as readers of this 
paper will have noticed, my present belief." 

The subject of the ' controls ' of Mediums is a 
most perplexing problem. But I think I am correct 
in saying that the majority of the people who have 
studied it carefully incline to the opinion that the 
controls are secondary personalities, dream person- 
alities created by the Medium's sub-conscious self. 



no TRANCE MEDIUMS 

But some who have had a very large experience of 
sittings with Mediums retain a feeling that, in some 
cases anyhow, there may be behind these controls 
a real, separate personality, who occasionally comes 
into play. 

There is no doubt that Nelly was extraordinarily 
life-like, but this very fact throws doubt upon her 
being the spirit of a baby who died when four 
months old. I venture to suggest the possibility of 
Nelly being a reconstruction — resuscitation — I 
hardly know what word to use — of Mrs. Thompson 
herself as a child. 

Some people retain an extraordinarily vivid recol- 
lection, not only of the events of their childhood, 
but of their own childish personality and outlook. 
If in trance Mrs. Thompson's grown-up personality 
faded, and her childish personality emerged, the 
human reality of that fascinating child, Nelly, would 
be accounted for : though to me, at any rate, it 
seems an impossibility that a baby who died at four 
months old could by any means have developed 
the essentially mundane outlook with which Nelly 
surveyed persons and things. 

Also this hypothesis would, it seems to me, largely 
account for Mrs. Cartwright, who was life-like, but 
not as much so as Nelly. A child realises the 
personality and idiosyncrasies of its teacher with 
great vividness, and not infrequently mimics them. 
Mr. Piddington wrote {Proceedings XVIII, 126) "I 
felt as if the medium might be reproducing in her 
trance a cut and dried delineation of her old 
mistress." If Mrs. Thompson dreamt herself a child 
again, this reproduction of her old schoolmistress 
would be very natural. And it may be noticed that 
though Nelly ' sauces ' Mrs. Cartwright, and mimics 
her, still she to a certain extent defers to, and obeys 



TRANCE MEDIUMS in 

her, which would also be natural to Mrs. Thompson 
as a child, though not at all natural in the case of a 
spirit who had departed at four months of age to 
regions where one hopes, at any rate, that persons 
of the Mrs. Cartwright type no longer exercise 
authority. 



CHAPTER VI 

AUTOMATIC WRITING AND CROSS-CORRESPONDENCES 

Mr. F. W. H. Myers died on January 17, 1901. 
Nine years earlier he had written : " Messages given 
through automatic writing . . . have perplexities 
of their own . . . But with all the doubts as to 
their true origin these written messages seem to me 
to form our most hopeful approach to the exact 
knowledge we require," i.e. of continued existence 
after death. 

It is notable that almost immediately after the 
death of Mr. Myers a new type of automatic writing 
developed. But it must be remembered that a few 
months after Mr. Myers' death, his posthumous work, 
Human Personality, was published, and very widely 
read ; and this caused an increased interest to be 
taken by many people in psychical phenomena. But 
though the book may account for a number of people 
making attempts to write automatically, it cannot in 
itself be said to account for the veridical contents of 
much of the automatic script which resulted from 
these attempts ; nor for the cross-correspondences 
between various scripts which gradually have been 
discovered. 

It will be of interest to give in full Mrs. Verrall's 
own account of the beginnings of her automatic 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 113 

writing : always bearing in mind that she had no 
success whatever until after the death of Mr. Myers. 
In Proceedings XX, Mrs. Verrall wrote : — 

Early attempts. 

" For some considerable number of years I have 
been interested in automatic phenomena, and have 
tried to obtain them in different ways. My experi- 
ences in Crystal Gazing during the years 1889 — 1892 
were recorded and published in the Proceedings 
S.P.R., Vol. VIII, p. 473, et seq. With a few 
doubtful exceptions the pictures so seen were purely 
fantastic. With Planchette or a table, if I have sat 
with a second person, I have usually obtained move- 
ments, though the results were seldom of any 
interest ; but till recently I was quite unable to get 
any movement with Planchette when sitting alone, or 
any writing with a free pencil except a few letters 
repeated in meaningless combinations, e, v, r, 
appearing and reappearing as ' every, very, ever,' 
and so on. It is probable that the letters of my 
surname, the word most frequently written in 
ordinary life without conscious effort, were responsible 
for the words produced. 

I had come to the conclusion that automatic 
writing was not possible to me ; but in January 
1901, I resolved to make a fresh attempt, and on this 
occasion the attempt was more persistent than had 
been the case with the earlier efforts. 

Reneived attempt. 

On January 19, 1901, I spent a quarter of an hour 
or more in sitting perfectly still in a very dim light 
with a view to giving myself the opportunity of 
recognising any impression that I might have. I 
continued this daily, and after two or three days I 
H 



ii4 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

put my hands on a Planchette or held a pencil. But 
I obtained no satisfactory results. Unless my 
attention were actively engaged in some other 
direction the pencil did not move ; if I tried to 
occupy my attention with reading, the pencil merely 
reproduced some of the words of the book, or 
occasionally traced characters resembling those of a 
brass table on which the pencil and paper lay ; 
Planchette was altogether useless. After February 
2, I left off the attempts for some days, and two 
later attempts on February 12, and 13, produced no 
better results. I made no further effort till March 3, 
and again on March 5 ; it was on this latter date 
that what I regard as the first successful result was 
obtained. 

Successful attempts ; script obtained in Latin. 

When I resumed the attempt in March, I decided 
not to endeavour to distract my attention by reading, 
but to let my mind passively follow any suggestions 
which might come from movements of the pencil or 
otherwise. On March 3, much the same sort of 
thing was written as in the earlier attempts, words 
not making any intelligible sense but not wholly 
disconnected ; these words were followed by Greek 
letters, Greek words, and odd signs. On the second 
occasion, March 5, at first the words presented 
themselves to me as wholes, but the sequence was 
unintelligible ; then I suddenly felt a strong impulse 
to change the position of the pencil and to hold it 
between the thumb and first finger. Ever since an 
attack of writer's cramp, some sixteen years ago. I 
have held the pen or pencil between the first and 
second finger, and I had naturally held^the pencil in 
the same way when trying to get automatic writing. 
Now, however, in obedience to the impulse, I took 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 115 

the pencil between my thumb and first finger, and 
after a few nonsense words it wrote rapidly in Latin. 
I was writing in the dark and could not see what I 
wrote ; the words came to me as single things, and I 
was so much occupied in recording each as it came 
that I had not any general notion of what the meaning 
was. I could never remember the last word ; it 
seemed to vanish completely as soon as I had written 
it. Sometimes I had great difficulty in recognising 
what was the word I wanted to write, while at other 
times I could only get part of it. When I had filled 
one sheet of paper, I turned up the electric light and 
read what had been written before going on to the 
next sheet. On this first occasion, March 5, 1901, 
my hand wrote about 80 words almost entirely in 
Latin, but though the words are consecutive and 
seem to make phrases, and though some of the 
phrases seem intelligible, there is no general sense in 
the passage. 

Till the end of the month, with a very few 
exceptions, I continued daily to write fluently in 
Latin, with occasional Greek words. The writing 
was not intelligible throughout, but it improved, and 
was very different from the mere rubbish with which 
it began. Whole phrases were intelligible, and in 
spite of blunders of every description the general 
drift was often easily apparent. The actual writing 
was my own normal handwriting, and the amount 
produced at each sitting remained about what it had 
been on the first occasion. I continued to use paper 
of the same size, and the script usually filled one 
page, that is, it consisted of from 70 to 90 words, but 
occasionally the impulse to write continued after the 
page was full, and I then took a second piece of 
paper. The end of the impulse to write was often 
signalised by the drawing ot a long line. After the 



n6 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

first two or three times of writing I never read what I 
had been writing till the end, and though I continued 
to be aware of the particular word or perhaps two 
words, that I was writing, I still retained no re- 
collection of what I had just written and no general 
notion as to the meaning of the whole. 

Appearance of English. 

On March 31, occurred the first intelligent use of 
English, namely the word ' Remember ' in peculiar 
and separated letters, followed by ' A.V.E. vale,' at 
the termination of the script ; on April 3 the script 
ended; 'God a Dieu Good be ye Tuus ' ; and on 
April 16 a remark in English was interpolated in the 
midst of the Latin. From that time onward English 
has appeared and continues to appear quite as 
frequently as Latin ; while there has been a good 
deal of Greek also from time to time. Speaking 
generally these three languages are the only 
languages used, though occasional words from others 
are to be found. 

Generally speaking, my intention has been to try 
for writing about twice a week, but sometimes I have 
been too much occupied with other matters to make 
the necessary effort ; sometimes the writing itself has 
suggested that I should leave off for a time ; or I 
have felt disposed to wait without quite knowing 
why. On the other hand, I have occasionally felt 
desirous of writing more frequently than twice a 
week, or I have deliberately resolved beforehand to 
try the experiment of writing on consecutive days. 

The writing is not always uniform in size, but 
varies a little as my own writing does. . . Sometimes 
however, the handwriting is wholly unlike my normal 
hand. . . . The handwriting of some words in the 
script of May 8, 1901, as noted at the time, is not 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 117 

mine ; it is not known to me and does not recall any 
writing that I know. I subsequently found that 
very similar words had been spoken in trance by a 
sensitive at a distant place and at approximately the 
same hour. . . . In one case the script produced a 
very marked handwriting quite unknown to me ; . . . 
as I was writing by arrangement at the same time as 
another friend, I sent her a copy of the script and 
found not only that the contents of the message were 
in part intelligible to her, but that the handwriting 
resembled that of a lady unknown to me, (alive), of 
whom she had been thinking in connexion with the 
subject of my message." 

Mrs. Verrall went on to say that the script was 
full of inaccuracies, but often of a kind not paralleled 
in her normal writing; — "As far as I can judge the 
two chief errors to which I am normally liable 
seldom occur in the script. I am apt to omit 
a letter occasionally, and a word often, but I can 
find few traces of this in the script. . . . The com- 
monest error in my normal writing ... is the 
omission of the initial letter of a word ; . . . this 
seems to be wholly wanting in the automatic 
writer. . . . 

" English, Latin and Greek are freely . . . employed, 
... Of modern foreign languages there is hardly a 
trace. . . . French I know well and read as easily as 
English ; I speak it also, and indeed constantly 
dream in it. . . . It has always seemed to me one of 
the most unaccountable features of this automatic 
writing that French, which has for me long and 
deep associations of familiarity and sentiment, should 
altogether fail to appear. I should certainly have 
expected to find traces of French in any expression 
of my profounder feelings. The complete absence 
of such traces is one of several indications that the 



n8 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

subliminal strata tapped, so to speak, in the 
automatic writings are not those reached by the 
usual ways of dreaming or semi-conscious thought. . . . 

" Puns. Here is another point in which my sub- 
liminal and supraliminal selves differ. I have hardly 
ever made a pun in my life ; I do not easily see 
analogies between words, and I am seldom amused 
by comic puns, or interested by the ancient oracular 
play upon words. But it is otherwise with the 
automatic script. It is fond of punning, and es- 
pecially of punning upon names ; it is indeed quite 
like an ancient oracle in its desire to find a meaning 
in a name, as well as in its complete disregard for the 
laws of philology. . . . 

" Another characteristic of the script not shared by 
my normal self is a tendency to break out into verse. 
I am by no means a poet and have great difficulty in 
producing even a very short set of verses in English. 
. . . Several fragments of verse have occurred ... in 
the automatic script, in each of the three languages, 
(Greek, Latin, and English), used. . . . There seems 
an increasing tendency to produce English verse." 

As regards varieties of dramatic form assumed by 
the script ; Mrs. Verrall stated : — " The mass of the 
writing consists of unsigned observations, not to be 
attributed to any identifiable person, though often 
expressed in the first person ' I,' and addressed to 
someone in the second person 'you,' presumably 
myself. But two other types occur — one where the 
script seems to represent a conversation between two 
or more persons ; and another where a direct personal 
note is introduced by the appending of a signature to 
the supposed communications. 

u On May u, 1901 1 wrote in the dark at 

1 1. 10 p.m. Some earlier statements in the script 
were veridical ; the conclusion was as follows : 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 119 

(Translation of original Latin). ' This is what I 
have wanted, at last. Justice and joy speak a word 
to the wise. A.W.V. (Dr. Verrall's initials) and 
perhaps someone else. Chalk sticking to the feet 
has got over the difficulty. You help greatly by 
always persevering. Now I can write a name — thus, 
here it is ! ' The rest is unintelligible. A drawing 
of a bird with a large head, embellished by a 
demoniac grin, was made. 

Mrs. Verrall continued, " I showed the script to 
my husband next day. We could make nothing of 
it, and were much amused at the drawing of what 
we often referred to in the next few days as the 
' cockyoly bird.' 

On the evening of May 16, I saw in the West- 
minster Gazette an account (abridged) from the 
Daily Mail of an incident occurring on the night 
between Saturday, May 11, and Sunday, May 12, 
which recalled to me the script above quoted. The 
writer of the account in the Daily Mail stated that a 
friend of his had been compelled to leave his rooms, 
' in one of the Inns within a stone's throw of the 
Law Courts,' on account of ' uncanny happenings.' 
The writer and a friend of his arranged to sit through 
the night of May 11, in the empty rooms and watch 
events. Precautions were taken to prevent intrusion, 
and powdered chalk was spread on the floor of the 
two smaller rooms ' to trace anybody or anything 
that might come and go.' The watchers saw a door 
unlatched and open slowly, and heard the click of 
the handle. This was at 12.43 a - m - At 12.56 the 
same thing occurred to another door. Both doors 
were closed, and no mark was visible on the 
powdered chalk. At 1.32 a.m. the right-hand door 
opened again as before, and at 1.37 the left-hand 
door opened. At 1.40 both doors closed simul- 



- . ■ . 



120 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

taneously ' of their own accord.' Between 1.45 and 
1.55 this happened twice again, so that there were 
in all four openings and three closings unaccounted 
for. (The first time the doors had been closed by 
the watchers). The last openings took place at 2.7 
and 2.9, and both watchers noticed marks on the 
chalk in the two little rooms. On examination it 
was seen that the marks were ' clearly defined bird's 
footprints in the middle of the floor, three in the left- 
hand room and five in the right-hand room.' The 
marks were identical, and exactly 2| inches in size ; 
they might be compared to the footprints of a bird 
about the size of a turkey. There were three toes 
and a short spur behind. Nothing further occurred. 
The footprints were seen at 2.30 ; they waited till 
3.30, and then went home. No attempt is made to 
explain the occurrence, and the correspondent says 
that he has 'simply stated facts.' 

The statement in the script that the sticking of 
chalk to the feet got over the difficulty, followed by 
a drawing of a bird with a leer, is a singularly 
appropriate comment on the story in the Daily Mail. 
But the remarkable point is that the script was 
written at 11. 10 p.m., whereas the first opening of the 
door did not occur till 12.43 a.m., and the footprints 
were not observed till 2.30 a.m. The statement, 
therefore, of the script anticipated the reported 
event by some three hours, and its publication by a 
still longer period. It is true that the sprinkling of 
the chalk probably preceded the writing, but there is 
no reason to think that the writer of the tale had 
any expectation as to the sort of marks he might 
find in the chalk. Nothing that had previously 
occurred suggested that the supposed disturber of the 
room was a bird. (The writer of the article in the 
Daily Mail was seen by Mr Piddington, and stated 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 121 

that he and his friend had no anticipations as to 
what they might discover.) . . . 

The question of a connection between the story 
and the script is not affected by the value of the 
story. The script was obtained on May 11, and 
whether or not a bird made marks in the chalk in 
the early hours of May 12, it is certain that a story 
to that effect was printed on May 1 3 and brought to 
my knowledge on May 16." 

Many communications, apparently from the Myers 
control, were subsequently received by Mrs Verrall ; 
but these will be more conveniently dealt with in 
connexion with the scripts of other automatists, 
particularly Mrs Holland. 

Mrs Verrall, describing ' A new group of experi- 
menters,' wrote as follows : — " On September 26th, 
1908, when I was away from home, I received a 
letter from a complete stranger in Scotland, enclosing 
a considerable number of specimens of automatic 
script . . ." The writer, who is here called Miss 
Mac, gave a brief account of the origin and develop- 
ment of the script, and explained that lately the 
controls had urged that the script should be sent to 
Mrs Verrall. The letter, dated September 23rd, 
1908, was as follows : — 

' We are a family of five and are all more or less, 
as well as our parents, able to write to a certain 
extent with Planchette. ... It is about nine 
months ago that I read Mr Myers' Human 
Personality for the first time. I was greatly inter- 
ested in it. We had a Planchette in the house, but 
had never succeeded in writing with it when on one 
or two occasions we had tried. However, I read in 
the above book that several people had tried for a 
considerable period before getting legible writing, so 
that I felt encouraged to try again. After about 



122 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

eight weeks of practice, generally once a day, the 
huge illegible scrawling gradually decreased in size 
and then changed into handwriting, words, and then 
sentences. We told the Planchette to stop after 
every word, instead of stringing them together as at 
first, and now it generally refuses to go on until 
lifted and replaced after every word. . . . 

* I, when from home, ceased writing for three 
months, and on my return . . . practised with my 
brother A., with the result that I cannot now write 
legibly with any other member of the family. . . . 
A. writes more or less with every member . . . but 
best with me.' 

Mrs Verrall, in giving details respecting the script, 
mentions that an attempt was made " to relate a 
complicated story in Italian verse. This language 
was unknown to Mr. A. Mac ; and Miss E. Mac, the 
other automatist, had only a slight knowledge of it. 
The Italian of the script is fluent, but inaccurate and 
ungrammatical ; it contains words not to be found in 
dictionaries. . . . The general meaning is, however, 
plain enough. But it is difficult to say with 
certainty that it shows knowledge beyond that 
possessed by Miss Mac, though it is certainly not 
the sort of thing that she would or could consciously 
and deliberately write. 

About the middle of September there arose what 
Miss Mac described as 'a regular clamour of 
entreaty,' on the part of the controls, that she should 
write to Mrs Verrall. " My name had occurred in the 
script of July, and the idea of sending some of the 
' Sidgwick ' messages to me had arisen, but nothing 
had been done, as Miss Mac did not think the 
messages sufficiently definite to warrant her in 
writing to an absolute stranger. ' It was only,' as 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 123 

she writes, ' Planchette's entreaties that have made us 
change our minds. . . .' 

On September 18, (the control) urged the desir- 
ability of despatching the specimens to me, so that 
they might reach me ' by the next Saturday week,' — 
before that is, Saturday, September 26, 1908 — and 
this was done." Further on Mrs Verrall comments, 
" This latter fact at once struck me. My daughter 
and I were engaged in an experiment necessitating 
the comparison of our scripts at fixed intervals, and 
it had been arranged that the next comparison 
should be made on September 27, the reason being 
that we were to separate on Sept. 28, for some 
weeks. . . . If therefore any question were raised by 
the newly received script, which necessitated a 
reference by me to Miss Verrall's script, September 
27 was the last possible day on which that reference 
could be made. ... In view of the appropriateness 
of another date named in the Mac script, this date 
may perhaps be regarded as not due to accident." 

The other date incident is the following ; after 
sending the script and first letter to Mrs Verrall, 
as related above, when the Mac family attempted 
automatic writing they obtained the following, — 
' Wait till V writes Wednesday week,' i.e. October 7. 
And this was reiterated a few days subsequently. 
Mrs Verrall wrote on receiving the script, saying 
that it would be some time before she could comment 
in detail on it. But she was able to do so earlier 
than she expected, and on Wednesday, October 7, 
Miss Mac received a letter from Mrs Verrall, 
commenting at length on the script. 

Mrs Verrall states : — -" At the time when Miss 
Mac wrote (first) to me there was absolutely no 
acquaintance between any members of the two 
families. A cousin of Miss Mac's was a college 



124 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

friend of Miss Verrall's, and this served as an 
introduction for the correspondence that began with 
the sending of the script." 

But before proceeding to give further examples of 
automatic script, it will be convenient to give a short 
account of other automatic writers or scribes. Mrs. 
Sidgwick, {Proceedings XXIX, pp 256, 257). describes 
them as follows : — 

" We have had Mrs. Verrall, who developed her 
power of automatic writing in the early months of 
1901, and continued until her death last year; and 
Miss Verrall, (Mrs. Salter), who began writing 
occasionally under her mother's influence in 1903, 
and took it up more regularly in 1906. Mrs. Holland 
who had previously written automatically from time 
to time, put herself in communication with Miss 
Johnson in 1903, after reading Mr. Myers' book 
Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, 
and continued for many years to send her script to 
her. Miss Johnson has published three interesting 
reports on it in our Proceedings. The first of these 
immediately after its publication in 1908 was read by 
the lady we call Miss Mac. She and her brother had 
already tried for and obtained automatic writing with 
a planchette after reading Human Personality, but 
the reading of Miss Johnson's paper on Mrs. Holland 
seems to have brought them into psychical relation 
with the S. P. R. group of investigators to whom they 
were complete strangers. They developed a Sidgwick 
control, and their script told them to send what they 
had written to Mrs. Verrall. When they did so 
interesting cross-correspondences were found. 

Mrs. Willett, who knew a little about the work of 
the Society, also began to write automatically towards 
the end of 1908, and communicated on the subject 
with Mrs. Verrall, then a stranger to her ; and since 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 125 

then Mrs. King and Mrs. Wilson have been added to 
the workers and have contributed to cross-correspond- 
ence evidence. . . To the seven ladies just named, we 
must add as also concerned with the cross-correspond- 
ences, Mrs. Forbes Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Piper, 
who were working before 1900." 

It must be understood that the automatic script of 
all these writers contains communications which 
purport to come from the deceased founders and 
members of S. P. R., Edmund Gurney, (died 1888) 
Professor Henry Sidgwick (died 1900). Frederic 
Myers, (died 1901). Richard Hodgson (died 1905); 
as well as other deceased persons. Without pre- 
judging the question whether these communications 
be indeed so derived, it is convenient to write of them 
as coming from the ' Myers control,' the ' Gurney 
control,' etc : and to further distinguish them as the 
' Holland Myers,' the ' Verrall Myers,' the ' Mac 
Sidgwick,' to indicate through which automatic scribe 
the messages come. 

Mrs. Holland, (pseudonym, as her family object to 
Psychical Research), wrote to Miss Johnson on July 
2, 1903 from India, saying that she had just finished a 
careful reading of Mr. Myers' Human Personality and 
had been greatly interested in it on account of various 
experiences of her own which were akin to some 
described in the book. She had for instance practised 
automatic writing since 1893 for her own amusement. 

Up to that time, (July 1903) and indeed for years 
afterwards Mrs. Holland had not seen any of the 
Proceedings or Journals of S. P. R. Human Personality 
was the only book on the subject that she had 
read ; and she knew nothing of the officials or Council 
of S. P. R. beyond the information concerning them 
which can be derived from that book : she did not 
meet Miss Johnson until October 1905. 



126 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

After further correspondence it was arranged that 
Mrs. Holland should send her script, as she wrote it, 
to Miss Johnson : and this was done until April 1904, 
when Mrs. Holland left India and came to Europe. 
Mrs. Verrall during the same period sent her script, 
as has been already mentioned, to Sir Oliver Lodge. 
Miss Johnson knew very little about Mrs. Verrall's 
script, and Sir Oliver Lodge knew little or nothing 
about Mrs. Holland's script. Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. 
Holland knew nothing about each other's script. 
Nevertheless, two years later when Miss Johnson for 
the first time studied Mrs. Verrall's script, she dis- 
covered in it certain passages which resembled pass- 
ages in Mrs. Holland's script of about the same 
date. 

For instance, on Dec. 29, 1903, the Myers control 
wrote, by the hand of Mrs. Verrall, " Listen to the 
voice of one crying and proclaiming in desert places.'' 
On Jan. 5. 1904, Mrs. Holland wrote, "Words said — 
shouted — sung to the wind may perhaps reach you 
sometime." And on Jan. 12, 1904, "Does anything 
reach you, or am I only wailing as the wind wails- 
wordless and unheeded." 

On Jan. 6, 1904, the Holland-Myers wrote, " The 
missionary spirit and the great longing to speak to 
the souls in prison." And on Feb. 2, 1904 the 
Verrall-Myers wrote, " Slaves in prison (for whom) ? 
the pure have done prodigies." 

On Sunday Jan. 17, 1904, the Holland-Myers wrote 
"Thursday — Jan. 17th, 1901." (The anniversary 
of the day Mr. Myers died) " I have no wish to return 
in thought and memory to that time but let that date 
stand for what it stands for to mine and me — 

"Yet another attempt to run the blockade— to strive 
to get a message through. How am I to make your 
hand docile enough, how can I convince them ? 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 127 

"The sealed envelope (1899) is not to be opened yet 
— not yet. 

" I am unable to make your hand form Greek 

characters and so I cannot give the text as I wish 

only the reference— I Cor. 16—13." (Watch ye, 
stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong)! 
"Oh, I am feeble with eagerness— How can I best 
be identified — It means so much apart from the mere 
personal love and longing— Edmund's help is not 
here with me just now— T am trying alone amid 
unspeakable difficulties — 

" We kw, we happy few, we band of brothers.' 
(Henry V., Act IV, Scene 3). 

" Dear old chap, you have done so much in the past 
three years— I am cognisant of a great deal of it but 
with strange gaps in my knowledge— If I could only 
talk with you— If I could only help you with some 
advice— I tried more than once did it ever come— 
There's so much to be learnt from the Diamond 
Island experiment." (Miss Johnson notes 'lam unable 
to conjecture the meaning of this phrase :' but see below). 
"well meaning but very ignorant— bound to be 
tinged by the channels through which they are con- 
veyed—Help me— give me the help of your belief of 
your sympathy— Take the message to you all I can- 
not yet fully and (ending in illegible scribbling)." 

Miss Johnson notes:— "The text to which Mrs. 
Holland's script gives the reference is . . . in Greek 
over the Gateway of Selwyn College, Cambridge, 
which would be passed in going from Mr. Myers' 
house to Mrs. Verrall's, or to the rooms in Newnham 
College where Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick lived. 
The Greek inscription over the Selwyn gateway has 
an error in it on which Mr. Myers had more than 
once remarked to Mrs. Verrall. The fact that this 
text turns up in the script again, more than a year 



128 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

later, and also in connection with Mrs. Verrall, but 
before Mrs. Holland knew that there was any signific- 
ance in its first appearance, suggests strongly that it 
is not a mere chance allusion. Mrs. Holland has 
never been in Cambridge and has, I believe, few 
friends or acquaintances having any connection with 
it." 

Mrs. Holland's script for January 27, 1904, 
contained the following : — (M) " It is impossible for 
me to know how much of what I send reaches you 
and how much you are able to set down — I feel as if 
I had presented my credentials — reiterated the 
proofs of my identity in a wearisomely frequent 
manner — but I cannot feel as if I had made any true 
impression upon them. Surely you sent them — what 
I strove so to transmit — Your pride if you name a 
nervous vanity pride was surely not strong enough to 
weigh against my appeals — Even here even under 
present conditions I should know I should thrill 
responsive to any real belief on their part — Oh it is a 
dark road." 

Miss Johnson notes : — " This expression of dis- 
appointment at our failure to appreciate and respond 
to the effort that had been made from the other side 
is strikingly appropriate to the circumstances. At 
this time it had not occurred to me to enquire 
whether any correspondences existed between Mrs. 
Holland's script and that of Mrs. Verrall, and it was 
not until October, 1905, — after the series of 
experiments to be related below, — that I told Mrs. 
Verrall of the statement in Mrs. Holland's script of 
Jan. 17, 1904." 

Sir Oliver Lodge has referred to the Diamond 
Island script, in the first edition of The Survival of 
Man ; but the matter is too important for me to 
omit it. As will have been seen, in 1907 Miss 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 129 

Johnson noted that she was unable to conjecture its 
meaning, but in 1911 she wrote as follows: — 

" I stated in a foot-note to this script that I was 
unable to conjecture the meaning of the phrase 
' Diamond Island experiment ' ; and Mrs. Holland, 
who was accustomed to tell me of any facts within 
her knowledge that could throw light on the script, 
had made no comment on it. Nor did it convey 
anything, as far as I could learn, to those who read 
the Proceedings. 

On Nov. 24, 1908, Mrs. Holland, being in 
England, came to see me and told me among other 
things that she thought this phrase must be an 
allusion to wireless telegraphy, since Diamond Island 
(which she believed to be near] Diamond Harbour at 
the mouth of the Hoogli river), had a wireless station 
on it. Some time later, Mrs. Verrall, hearing of this 
interpretation, pointed out to me that it followed 
that the whole of this part of the script was intended 
to be addressed to Sir Oliver Lodge, and I then 
perceived that most of the message evidently was 
intended for him. But on communicating with him 
on the subject, though he recognised the appropriate- 
ness of the general tone and substance of the 
message,* the phrase ' Diamond Island ' awoke no 
chord in his memory. He told me, however, that 
the Lodge-Muirhead system was at work between 
Burma and the Andaman Island, and he wrote to his 
friend and partner in this matter, Dr. Alexander 
Muirhead, F.R.S., on Feb. 24, 1910, to ask: — 

' Do you remember whether any wireless experi- 
ments were conducted across the mouth of the 
Hoogli or anywhere in that neighbourhood ? If so, 
can you name the place? I should rather like to 
know whether they tested the Andaman installation 
first at the Hoogli — or wherever it was. They must 
I 



130 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

have tried it somewhere. Is there a wireless station 
on the Hoogli do you know ? ' 

Dr. Muirhead replied on Feb. 26, 1910: — 'I 
believe Mr. Simpson, the man who put up the 
Andaman Wireless, has been conducting some 
experiments between a pilot boat and Calcutta. 
The Andaman circuit is between Diamond Island, 
at the mouth of the Irrawaddy in Burma, and Port 
Blair.' 

Thus it appears that Mrs. Holland's conjecture of 
a connexion between Diamond Island and wireless 
telegraphy was correct, but that she had located it 
wrongly, viz., at the mouth of the Hoogli, whereas it 
is really situated at the mouth of the Irrawaddy, in 
Burma. From enquiries made with Sir Oliver 
Lodge's help, I find that towards the end of August, 
1904, operations were begun for establishing wireless 
telegraph stations at Port Blair and at Diamond 
Island — preliminary experiments had already been 
carried on for three months in the early part of 1904, 
the circuit being in complete working order first on 
Feb. 10, 1905. Sir Oliver Lodge of course knew of 
the Burma-Andamans installation, but had entirely 
forgotten that the Burma end of the installation is on 
Diamond Island (which is a very small island, not 
marked on most maps.) 

Further inquiries of Mr. Simpson elicited the 
following: — " In 1903, February, we started out from 
Calcutta to try to link up Diamond Island with the 
Andamans. At first we established communications 
over a short distance — it was not until April, 1904, 
any actual experimenting was done on Diamond 
Island." This was referred to in some Indian news- 
papers. 

Miss Johnson comments : — " The script is re- 
markably appropriate in several respects as a 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 131 

message to Sir Oliver Lodge. It was written on 
Jan. 17, 1904, the third anniversary of Mr. Myers's 
death, which was also the end of Sir Oliver Lodge's 
three years' Presidency of the S.P.R. I take the 
phrase — ' you have done so much in the past three 
years ' to refer to this. The tone of affectionate 
intimacy running through the whole script is also 
especially appropriate." 

Mrs. Holland knew the date of Mr. Myers's death 
and that Sir Oliver Lodge had been President of the 
S.P.R. in 1903 ; but when 1 asked her if she knew in 
Jan. 1904, that he was an intimate friend of Mr. 
Myers's, and that he had been President for three 
years, she replied : — " I did not realise then that Sir 
Oliver Lodge was an intimate friend of Mr. Myers's. 
There were references to him, of course, in Human 
Personality — but I did not know there was a 
friendship of long standing, and I certainly did not 
know in January 1904, that he became President of 
the S.P.R. after Mr. Myers's death. I am surprised 
to hear that he held it for three years, — I thought it 
had been for two. It never struck me before that 
this message was to Sir Oliver Lodge." 

It is further significant that, as Sir Oliver Lodge 
tells me, Mr. Myers had been keenly interested in 
his work in wireless telegraphy and it was while 
with Mr. Myers, and stimulated by him, that he 
devised the fundamental plan for ' tuning ' which in 
some form or other is necessarily used in all systems 
of wireless telegraphy and was first patented by him 
in 1897. The term syntony was invented for him by 
Mr. Myers and Dr. A.T. Myers. 

While the script is thus thoroughly characteristic of 
the relation between Mr. Myers and Sir Oliver Lodge, 
the fact that it is connected in point of time with the 
first important cross-correspondence between Mrs. 



132 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

Holland and Mrs. Verrall — the ' Selwyn text 
Incident' — seems to lend weight to the supposition 
that what we may call the ' Diamond Island script ' 
may have been at least partially inspired by the 
surviving personality of F.W.H Myers." 

Miss Johnson notes : — " The reader who compares 
the general character of the two scripts (i.e. Mrs. 
Verrall's script and Mrs. Holland's script), can hardly 
fail to notice the emotional nature and the note of 
personal appeal in the utterance of the Holland-Myers, 
as contrasted with the calmer, more impersonal, and 
more matter of fact tone of the Verrall-Myers. 

The contrast may, of course, represent nothing 
more than a difference in the automatists' own 
conceptions of the personality ; for, on any reasonable 
view of the facts, it is I think inevitable that the 
presentation of the personality should be largely 
coloured by their normal knowledge of its supposed 
original. 

Still it may be admitted that if Mr. Myers really 
knew what was going on, and if he was really 
concerned in the production of the scripts, it would 
be natural and appropriate that he should try to 
impress the two automatists in these different ways. 
Mrs. Verrall, a personal friend and trained investi- 
gator, was already familiar with scientific methods 
and in close touch with other investigators. She did 
not require urging to go on with her writing, from 
which some important evidence had already resulted. 

Mrs. Holland on the other hand was in an isolated 
position ; she was conscious of the superficially trivial 
and incoherent nature of her script, and could not 
tell whether there was anything in it beyond a 
dream-like rechauffe of her own thoughts. She 
would naturally shrink from exposing this to strangers 
and thereby appearing to attach an unreasonable 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 133 

degree of importance to it. We may suppose then 
that the control realises her situation, and tries to 
impress on her a vivid realisation of his own — his 
intense desire to provide evidence of survival." 

In January, 1906, Mrs. Holland heard of Dr. 
Hodgson's death, but she knew nothing about his 
personality or characteristics. 

On Feb. 9, 1906, she wrote automatically : — 

" Sjdibse Ipehtpo — Only one letter further on — 



18 


8 


9 


15 


3 


4 


8 


7 


1 


19 


18 


15 


4 


14 



" They are not haphazard figures, read them as 
letters" — Then followed other matter, partly correct 
and partly incorrect, in connection with Dr. Hodgson. 
The note " K. 57." occurring, without explanation. 

Miss Johnson comments: — "On Feb. 21st, 1906, 
when I saw Mrs. Holland we discussed this script. 
I found that in spite of the rather obvious hints given 
in it, — ' Only one letter further on,' and 'not 
haphazard figures read them as letters,' — Mrs. 
Holland had not deciphered the initial conundrums. 
The first letters are formed from the name ' Richard 
Hodgson ' by substituting for each letter of the name 
the letter following it in the alphabet ; the numbers 
represent the same name by substituting for each 
letter the number of its place in the alphabet. 

" I asked Mrs. Holland if she had ever played at 
conundrums of this kind. She told me that as a 



134 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

child in the nursery she had played at a secret 
language, made by using either the letter before, or 
the letter after the real one. But she had never 
practised or thought of using numbers in this way. 
She noted afterwards : ' When my hand wrote them 
I thought they were an addition sum, and I hoped 
my subliminal self would add it very correctly and 
quickly. My supraliminal self is very poor at 
figures.' " 

Mr. Piddington was in America during April and 
May, 1906, looking through Dr. Hodgson's papers ; 
and a copy of Mrs. Holland's script was sent to him. 
He wrote on May 25th: — "After the experience 
gained in the last four weeks, during which I have 
been going through all R. Hodgson's papers, I have 
no hesitation in saying that to represent R.H. as 
communicating his name to a sensitive by means of 
numbers representing letters, and especially 'sjdibse' 
etc., is an extremely characteristic touch." 

Mr. Piddington also mentioned that he had found 
amongst Dr. Hodgson's papers a note book, referring 
to " K. 11. K. 52. K. 30," apparently some 
system of notation of his papers. It will be noted 
that Mrs. Holland wrote " K. 57," on Feb. 9, 1906, 
and at once sent her script to Miss Johnson in 
England. Mr. Piddington did not go to America 
until the following April, and consequently knew 
nothing about Dr. Hodgson's note book until after 
that date. Therefore all possibility of telepathic 
influence from him to Mrs. Holland is precluded. 

The following script, always important evidentially, 
has recently acquired what I may term emotional 
interest. All readers of ' Raymond ' are well aware 
of the fatherly interest of Mr. Myers in Raymond 
Lodge, both before and after his death on Sept. 14, 
191 5. It will be seen that this special interest 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 135 

apparently existed nine years before Raymond's 
death. 

On November 7th, 1906, in the middle of a script 
treating of a variety of topics, Mrs. Holland wrote : 
— " On the ledge of the squarish — no oblong window 
is not a safe place for that solution — Of course you 
cannot consider poisons out of place in a laboratory 
— but there is not enough locking up — this one 
should be locked up — Towards the end of the room 
— to your left — an actinic green bottle." 

Miss Johnson took this to refer to Sir Oliver 
Lodge, who is not infrequently mentioned in the 
script, and it was sent to him for comment, on 
February 26th, 1907, together with two other slighter 
and vaguer passages in the script of two later dates. 
He replied — 

" The one on 7 Nov. 1906, about the poison 
bottle. 

" This I find is remarkably correct. My two 
youngest boys have a laboratory adjacent to the 
house — not at the college at all — and there they do 
photography, make explosives, and many other 
things. The other night when we were all together 
I asked them whether they had a green bottle of 
poison in that laboratory, and the elder said yes. 
It is on the bench, quite accessible, not on the ledge 
of the oblong window, but near it, and on the left. 
He says it has stood there nearly all the winter, and 
is Mercury Chloride which the doctor gave him for 
a lotion, — not one of their own chemicals. I have 
told him that it must be either thrown away 
or locked up. He agrees that it is too accessible, 
since the younger sisters sometimes enter the same 
laboratory." 

Sir Oliver Lodge did not refer to this script in 
' Raymond,' but in reply to a letter from me, he 



136 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

wrote, April 25, 1917. — "I have looked up the piece 
of script you mention, in Vol. 24, of the Proceedings 
S.P.R. page 3 1 6. It had passed from my memory. 
But undoubtedly Raymond was one of those boys ; 
and from internal evidence I should certainly say 
that the communication received by Mrs. Holland 
was one that purported to come from Myers." 

Jan. 7. 1904, the Holland-Myers wrote: — "I 
want to make it thoroughly clear to you all that the 
eidolon is not the spirit — only the simulacrum — If 
M were to see me sitting at my table or if any of 
you became conscious of my semblance standing 
near my chair that would not be me. My spirit 
would be there invisible but perceptive, but the 
appearance would be merely to call your attention 
to identify me — It fades and grows less easily re- 
cognisable as the years pass and my remembrance 
of my earthly appearance grows weaker — If you saw 
me as I am now you would not recognise me in the 
least — 

'All I could never be — All men refused in me 

This I was worth to God whose wheel the pitcher shaped.' 

(Browning). 

' I appear now as I would fain have been — as I 
desired to be in the very vain dreams of youth — and 
the time lined, pain lined, suffering face that some 
of you remember with tenderness is a mere mask 
now that I strive to conjure up for you to know me 
by — But my power is weak and you are not really 
receptive — Remember once again than the phantasm, 
the so-called ghost, is a counterfeit presentment 
projected by the spirit." 

Miss Johnson comments : — " The theory here 
expressed as to the true nature of a ' ghost ' is no 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 137 

doubt derived from the first part of the chapter on 
' Phantasms of the Dead,' in Human Personality, 
Vol. II. But Mrs. Verrall points out to me the 
rather remarkable use of the words ' eidolon ' and 
'simulacrum,' which do not occur in that chapter." 
Mrs. Verrall wrote : — " Eidolon is best represented 
by our word phantom. . . This notion of eidolon 
has much in common with the Lucretian simulacra. 
While we should not expect this usage to be known 
by one who was not a classical scholar, it would be 
likely to be familiar to readers of Homer and 
Lucretius, and in the quotation from Plotinus in 
Human Personality we have direct proof (if it were 
wanted) that Mr. Myers knew the passage in the XI 
Odyssey, the locus classicus for the special use of 
eidolon." 

It must be noted that Mrs Holland is not a 
classical scholar, and normally could know nothing 
about the Greek and Latin words referred to in her 
script. 

Miss Johnson writes : — 

" In the passage next to be quoted, the original 
script shows signs of emotional strain and intensity 
impossible to reproduce in a printed copy. The 
Gurney control, writing in pencil, tells the automatist 
that her hand will be left alone, and she is to write 
down a message transmitted to her brain. He then 
tells her to take a pen. She does so and the passage 
that follows is in her own ordinary handwriting. 
Then she breaks off, noting ' I am very restless,' etc. 
The script begins again in the writing of the Myers 
control, complaining that she is not giving the 
method of experiment a fair trial. Thus urged she 
makes a fresh attempt in her ordinary handwriting 
and gives, not quite correctly, the first lines of Mr. 



138 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

Myer's poem, St. Paul. (Mrs. Holland told me 
later that she had never read this poem, and was 
quite unaware till I told her that she had quoted 
from it in her script. Nevertheless she supposes as 
I do, that she had probably seen these lines quoted 
somewhere, and that she reproduced them from her 
subliminal memory.) After some general reflections, 
the handwriting gradually changes again, as if by 
an overpowering impulse, into that of the Myers 
control, expressing with passionate energy his 
desire to 'reach you--reach anyone.' Here the 
writing becomes large and emphatic, then stops 
dead, and the Gurney control resumes in pencil, 
' Why did you let your hand yield ? You have 
stopped and exhausted him now. . .' The auto- 
matist notes that this script has tired her more than 
any she has ever done. The full text is as follows : 

(January 12, 1904.) — (Gurney control) — ' Now I 
want you to do something different this morning. . . 
your hand will be left alone, but you are to write 
down as much as you can gather of a message trans- 
mitted to your brain alone — I think it will be easier 
for F. (F. W. H. Myers) Don't trouble to pick- 
phrases — jot down what is put in your mind — Throw 
it on the paper as it were — that will do — ' 

(In Mrs. Holland's ordinary handwriting.) 'To 
believe that the mere act of death enables a spirit to 
understand the whole mystery of death is as absurd 
as to imagine that the act of birth enables an infant 
to understand the whole mystery of life — 

' I am still groping — surmising — conjecturing — The 
experience is different for each one of us — What I 
have felt — experienced — undergone, is doubtless 
utterly unlike what each of you will experience in 
good time — 

' One was here lately who could not believe that he 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 139 

was dead — He accepted the new conditions as a 
certain stage of the treatment of his illness.' 

(Mrs. Holland notes, ' I am very restless — I have 
just taken an absolutely purposeless walk through 
two rooms and the verandah — but I could not help 

it.') 

(Myers control.) ' Try and fix your attention — 
you are not giving this a fair trial — I feel that if I 
am released from my attempts to make your hand 
write I may be able to send something really con- 
vincing — But oh the difficulty of it. Put your left 
hand at the back of your head and sit still!' 

There follow in Mrs. Holland's ordinary hand- 
writing the quotation from the poem, and the general 
reflections mentioned by Miss Johnson ; then — 

' If it were possible for the soul to die back into 
earth life again I should die from sheer yearning to 
reach you. (Here the writing changes into that of 
the Myers control) — to tell you that all we imagined 
is not half wonderful enough for the truth — that 
immortality instead of being a beautiful dream is the 
one, the only reality — the strong golden thread on 
which all the illusions of all the lives are strung — If 
I could only reach you — if I could only tell you — I 
long for power and all that comes to me is an infinite 
yearning — an infinite pain — Does any of this reach 
you, reach anyone or am I only wailing as the wind 
wails — wordless and unheeded ? " 

Miss Johnson wrote in a paper on Cross-Correspond- 
ences in Automatic Writing published in Proceedings, 
1908: — " The characteristic of these cases — or at least 
of some of them — is that we do not get in the writing 
of one automatist anything like a mechanical verbatim 
reproduction of phrases in the other ; we do not even 
get the same idea expressed different ways, — as 
might well result from direct telepathy between 



140 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

them. What we get is a fragmentary utterance in 
one script, which seems to have no particular point 
or meaning, and another fragmentary utterance in the 
other, of an equally pointless character ; but when 
we put the two together, we see that they supplement 
one another, and that there is apparently one 
coherent idea underlying both, but only partially 
expressed in each. 

" It occurred to me then, that by this method, if by 
any, it might be possible to obtain evidence more 
conclusive than any obtained hitherto, of the action 
of a third intelligence, external to the minds of both 
automatists. If we simply find the same idea ex- 
pressed — even though in different forms — by both of 
them, it may as I have just said, most easily be 
explained by telepathy between them ; but it is much 
more difficult to suppose that the telepathic per- 
ception of one fragment could lead to the production 
of another fragment which can only, after careful 
comparison, be seen to be related to the first. 

" The weakness of all well-authenticated cases of 
apparent telepathy from the dead is, of course, that 
they can generally be explained by telepathy from 
the living. . . . Hitherto the evidence for survival has 
depended on statements that seem to show the 
control's recollections of incidents in his past life. It 
would be useless for him to communicate telepathic- 
ally anything about his present life, because there 
would be no proof of the truth of his communication. 
. . . Evidence for telepathy from the dead . . . has 
hitherto mainly referred to events in the past. Now 
telepathy relating to the present, such as we some- 
times get between living persons, must be stronger 
evidentially than telepathy relating to the past, 
because it is much easier to exclude normal know- 
ledge of events in the present, than of events in the 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 141 

past. But it has been supposed impossible that we 
could ever get this kind of evidence for telepathy 
from the dead ; since events in the present are either 
known to some living person, in which case we could 
not exclude his telepathic agency ; or they are un- 
known to any living person, in which case it would 
be difficult or impossible to prove that they had 
occurred. 

" In these cross-correspondences, however, we find 
apparently telepathy relating to the present, — that is, 
the corresponding statements are approximately 
contemporaneous, — and to events in the present 
which, to all intents and purposes are unknown to 
any living person, since the meaning and point of 
her script is often uncomprehended by each automatist 
until the solution is found through putting the two 
scripts together. At the same time we have proof of 
what has occurred in the scripts themselves. 

" Now, granted the possibility of communication, it 
may be supposed that within the last (ew years a 
certain group of persons have been trying to com- 
municate with us, who are sufficiently well instructed 
to know all the objections that reasonable sceptics 
have urged against all the previous evidence, and 
sufficiently intelligent to realise to the full all the 
force of these objections. It may be supposed that 
these persons have invented a new plan — the plan of 
cross-correspondences to meet the sceptic's objections. 
There is no doubt that the cross-correspondences are a 
characteristic element in the scripts that we have been 
collecting in the last few years, — the scripts of Mrs. 
Verrall, Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Holland, and, still more 
recently, Mrs. Piper. And the important point is that 
the element is a new one. 

" We have reason to believe that the idea of 
making a statement in one script complementary of a 



142 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

statement in another had not occurred to Mr. Myers 
in his life-time ; for there is no reference to it in any of 
his written utterances on the subject that I have been 
able to discover. Also, it seems to me almost certain 
that if he had thought of it during his life-time, I 
should have heard of it while helping him in the 
publication of Human Personality, or he would have 
mentioned it to some other of his friends and col- 
leagues in the S.P.R. Neither did those who have 
been investigating automatic script since his death 
invent this plan, if plan it be. It was not the 
automatists that detected it, but a student of the 
scripts ; it has every appearance of being an element 
imported from outside ; it suggests an independent 
invention, an active intelligence constantly at work 
in the present, not a mere echo or remnant of in- 
dividualities of the past." 

Miss Johnson then quotes many passages from the 
scripts which seem to support this theory ; such as, 
from Mrs. Verrall's script, " But the end is not yet 
nor here — write only — interpret not — record the bits 
and when fitted they will make the whole." (Aug. 21, 
1904): and then continues : — 

" The question then arises whether the cross- 
correspondences should be regarded as cases of 
telepathy between the two automatists — only par- 
tially successful ; or cases in which some third 
agency, external to them both, was endeavouring to 
produce some rather different result. Assuming that 
the controls are actually trying to communicate some 
definite idea by means of two different automatists, 
whom at the same time they are trying to prevent 
from communicating telepathically with one another, 
what the controls have to do is to express the factors 
of the idea in so veiled a form that each writer 
indites her own share without understanding it. Yet 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 143 

the expression must be so definite that, when once 
the clue is found, no room is left for doubt as to the 
proper interpretation." 

As will have been gathered from Miss Johnson's 
explanation, above, the subject of cross-correspond- 
ences is extremely difficult in itself: it is, however, 
further complicated by the fact that most of the 
communications consist of abstruse references to 
classical authors, occasionally varied by allusions to 
Dante, and incidents in Italian history. 

This in itself affords weighty evidence that the 
communications are derived from some intelligence 
external to the scribes, as none of the automatic 
writers are classical scholars — with the exception of 
the late Mrs. Verrall ; but it makes it extremely 
difficult, if not impossible, to give the general reader 
any adequate idea of the point, or the force, of the 
allusions. 

I will however endeavour to render intelligible a 
series of cross-correspondences which has always 
appeared to me to be most striking. 

First it must be noted that in the autumn of 1906, 
about the time Miss Johnson first began to discover 
some cross-correspondences between the scripts of 
Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Holland, she and Mr. Pidding- 
ton decided to give a message in Latin to Myers 
through Mrs. Piper ; that is to say to the Piper- 
Myers control. The message was given in Latin, 
because Mrs. Piper is totally ignorant of that language. 
During the first half of November the English version 
of the message was composed, it was translated into 
Latin by Dr. Verrall the latter part of November ; 
and in the middle of December Mr. Piddington 
began to dictate it to Piper-Myers. 

The English version of the message was as 
follows : — ' We are aware of the scheme of cross- 



144 AUTOMATIC WRITING 

correspondence which you are transmitting through 
various mediums, and we hope that you will go on 
with them. 

' Try also to give to A. and B. two different 
messages, between which no connection is discernible. 
Then as soon as possible give to C. a third message 
which will reveal the hidden connection.' (By ' A.' 
' B ' and ' C various automatists were suggested). 
Miss Johnson comments : — " A good deal of ink 
has been spilt over the secondary question of 
whether (the Piper-Myers) had enough ' Myers ' 
in him to be able to translate the Latin in which the 
message was delivered to him. The primary question, 
of course, was whether ' Myers ' understood the 
purport of the Message and could prove his under- 
standing to us by producing the kind of cross-corres- 
pondence we wanted." 

I think it should also be noted, that quite apart 
from the question whether the Piper-Myers understood 
the Latin Message, there is another possibility, 
namely that Myers, telepathically or otherwise, 
might become to some extent aware of the gist 
of the Message, whilst it was being thought out, and 
debated by Miss Johnson and Mr. Piddington. In 
the ' Diamond Island ' communication Myers stated, 
' I am cognisant of a great deal of (the happenings 
of the last three years) but with strange gaps in my 
knowledge.' The possibility therefore must be 
reckoned with that Myers was ' cognisant ' of the 
purport of the Latin Message whilst it was being 
composed in November, 1906, before it was formally 
communicated to the Piper-Myers a month later. 

But howevert hat may be, the fact stands that in 
November 1906 a series of cross-correspondences, of 
the type suggested in the Message, commenced, and 
was continued at intervals until 1910, without either 



AUTOMATIC WRITING 145 

Miss Johnson, or any of the automatists who took 
part, understanding the drift of it : the real meaning 
not being discovered until July, 1912. 

Between the above mentioned dates, (November 
1906 and July 1910), the scripts of Mrs. Holland in 
India, Mrs. Verrall, Miss Verrall, Mrs. Willett, and 
the Mac family, also certain communications by Mrs. 
Piper, verbal and written, contained references to 
Laurels; Laurel wreaths; Night and Morning; 
Darkness and Light ; Library ; Moorhead ; Moors 
head; Alexander's tomb; and in the later scripts — 
Alexander Moors Head, and the Laurentian tombs. 

At the time these scripts were written, and for 
years afterwards, they were either considered to be 
meaningless, or were misinterpreted. For instance, 
Miss Verrall assumed the Alexander of whom she 
had written, to be Alexander the Great, as she was 
unaware that an Alexander de Medici had ever 
existed. And Miss Johnson interpreted 'Alexander 
Moors Head ' as a reference to Dr. Alexander 
Muirhead, connected with the Lodge-Muirhead 
system of wireless telegraphy. 

It was not until July 191 2 that all these scripts 
were grouped together and found to contain re- 
ferences, unmistakable when the key was once found, 
to the Medici ; to Lorenzo, whose emblem was the 
Laurel ; to Alexander, known as II Moro, or the 
Moor, his mother having been a mulatto slave ; to 
the Medici Library, and the Medici Tombs at 
Florence — on the tomb of Giuliano de Medici are 
statues by Michael Angelo representing Day and 
Night. 

For reasons dealt with at length by Miss Johnson 

{Proceedings XXVII), telepathic influence from a 

living author seems unlikely, if not impossible. We 

must therefore choose between attributing the whole 

K 



H6 automatic writing 

scheme to a series of chance coincidences, and 
accepting the possibility that Myers was thus carrying 
out the suggestion made to him in the Latin message. 



CHAPTER VII 

PREMONITIONS AND DEATH WARNINGS 

There are few people indeed who have not had at 
one time or other in their lives a premonition which 
has subsequently proved to be to some extent 
veridical. Premonitions of death are those most 
frequently recorded, because from the nature of the 
case they attract most attention. But it must be 
noted that premonitions of absolutely trifling events 
are by no means uncommon. Miss Goodrich Freer, 
{Proceedings, Vol. V) remarks on the considerable 
proportion of premonitions which ' relate to the 
arrival of letters, at the time, or soon after, 
passing through the post.' This of course may be 
caused by a telepathic impression derived from the 
person who wrote the letter ; but telepathy from an 
individual will not account for the by no means 
uncommon case of a premonitory dream of a heading, 
or paragraph of news, which duly appears in next 
day's newspaper. 

I myself dreamt one night that I saw an unusually 
worded newspaper heading, giving information which 
I did not in the least expect. The next morning that 
identical heading was the first item which caught my 
eye when I opened the Daily Telegraph. A friend 
of mine dreamt one night that she was standing on a 



148 PREMONITIONS 

cliff and saw a ship in distress, which by some means 
she knew to have sixty or seventy people on board ; 
and she saw life lines being thrown out. This dream 
she recounted next morning. An evening paper that 
day contained an account of a shipwreck on the 
Pacific coast, sixty to seventy people on board, and 
life lines being used. It in no way concerned my 
friend ; why did she dream about it? 

Mr. Myers suggested that such impressions were 
' cosmopathic,' which word he coined, defining its 
meaning to be 'open to the access of supernormal 
knowledge, apparently from the transcendental world.' 
Such occurrences are not strictly speaking premoni- 
tions. The shipwreck was taking place, or had taken 
place at the time of my friend's dream ; the news- 
paper heading was being printed, or had been printed 
at the time of my dream. 

This same consideration applies to so-called pre- 
monitions of air-raids, which were frequently recorded, 
and perhaps boasted of, during the war. Although 
in the early days of the war the general public had 
little knowledge of the weather conditions etc., which 
rendered an air-raid probable, from the first a very 
large number of aeronautic experts in England were 
well informed as to the number and movements of 
Zeppelins in Germany, and also, by their expert 
knowledge could form a very exact idea as to when a 
raid might be expected to take place. 

As a matter of fact the very first Zeppelin raid was 
accurately foretold by the aircraft correspondent of 
the Observer, who on Jan. 17, 191 5, stated that a raid 
might shortly be expected, 'perhaps this week.' And 
on Tuesday, Jan. 19, the first air raid took place in 
Norfolk ; the Observer correspondent receiving many 
letters of congratulation on his accurate forecast. 

The most that can be claimed for 'premonitions ' 



PREMONITIONS 149 

of air raids is that they were cosmopathic. But as a 
matter of fact anyone who read the Observer, and 
other newspapers which devoted space to aeronautics; 
or who conversed with our airmen, could obtain a very 
good idea not only on what nights raids might be 
expected, but also of the hour at which they would 
commence. I refer to the early days of Zeppelin 
raids ; later on, of course, we were all experts on the 
subject. 

There is no doubt that during the war there was a 
great deal of pseudo-prophecy. As each week 
brought fresh horrors, anyone who wished to pose as 
a prophet needed only to profess undefined melan- 
choly apprehension for a few days, and then claim the 
next terrible event which happened as a proof of 
foreknowledge. But ruling out pseudo-premonitions 
of this type, there remain a large number of well 
corroborated cases of foreknowledge, which cannot be 
explained by normally acquired information, or even 
by telepathy. One explanation oi premonitions 
which has been suggested is that ordinarily our 
realization of events is deferred till long after they 
have taken place, (as we hear thunder long after we 
see the lightning flash, though both are actually 
simultaneous), but that occasionally this realization is 
accelerated and is then termed a premonition. To 
my mind this hardly seems an adequate explanation, 
particularly in those cases where the premonition 
actually causes a threatened danger to be averted. 
For example, a lady, whose little girl was out alone 
sitting en a favourite seat beneath a railway embank- 
ment, was suddenly seized with acute, but undefined 
anxiety respecting her. A servant was sent to fetch 
the child, and her mother then felt relieved, and told 
her she might go out again provided she promised 
not to go back to the same place. An hour or so 



150 PREMONITIONS 

later a train fell over the embankment, and crashed 
on to the exact spot where the child wculd have been 
sitting had it not been for her mother's premonition 
of danger. I fail to see how the theory of deferred 
realization explains a case like this ; and such cases, 
though uncommon, do occur. I give as examples the 
two following, taken from the S. P. R. Journal, where 
the full names are given. 

Mr. M. wrote on April 17, 1912. " It may be of 
interest to you to learn that on the 23rd of March I 
booked my passage to New York on the White Star 
liner ' Titanic' About ten days before she sailed I 
dreamt that I saw her floating on the sea, and her 
passengers and crew swimming round her. Although 
I am not given to dreaming at all, I was rather im- 
pressed with this dream, but I disclosed it to no one, 
as my friends, besides my wife and family, knew that 
I was about to sail on the 'Titanic' and I did not 
want to cause them any possible uneasiness. The 
following night, however, I had the very same dream, 
and I must admit that then I was somewhat uncom- 
fortable about it. Still I said nothing to anyone and 
had all my trunks packed, business affairs arranged, 
and in fact had completed all my plans to sail on the 
10th instant." Mr. M. explains how he received a 
cable, suggesting he should postpone his voyage, and 
continues, ■' I therefore cancelled my ticket, and then 
— that is more than a week before the sailing of the 
' Titanic ' — I told my wife and several friends of the 
vivid dreams I had had on two consecutive nights. 
I may mention that previous to cancelling my passage, 
I felt most depressed and even despondent, but 
ascribed this feeling to the fact of my having to leave 
England — homesickness in fact ! — I may add that 
crossing the Atlantic is nothing new to me, as I have 
crossed a dozen times during the past few years, and 



PREMONITIONS 151 

I never remember having any feeling of uneasiness 
when about to do so, or during the passage." 

The above was corroborated, in writing, (dates 
April 23 and 25, 191 2) by two friends to whom Mr. 
M. had told the dream previous to the sailing of the 
'Titanic,' on April 10, 1912. The ship was wrecked 
on April 14-15, 19 12. 

Mrs. M. verbally, to Miss Newton, Secretary S. P. R. 
corroborated all the essential details. 

In the above case the business postponement, and 
not the premonition, seems to have prevented Mr. 
M. having a share in the fulfilment of his dream : but 
in the case that follows the premonition itself was the 
means of averting danger : — 

Captain A. B., U.S. Infantry, stated. — " In January, 
1877, I was on leave of absence at Brooklyn, with 
my two boys, then on vacation from school. I 
promised the boys that I would take them to the 
theatre that night, and I engaged seats for us three. 
At the same time I had the opportunity to examine 
the interior of the theatre, and I went over it carefully, 
stage and all. These seats were engaged the 
previous day, but on the day of the proposed visit it 
seemed as if a voice within me was constantly saying, 
' Do not go to the theatre ; take the boys back to 
school.' I could not keep these words out of my 
mind ; they grew stronger and stronger, and at noon 
I told my friends and the boys that we could not go 
to the theatre. My friends remonstrated with me, 
and said I was cruel to deprive the boys of a promised 
and unfamiliar pleasure to which they had looked 
forward, and I partly relented. But all the after- 
noon the words kept repeating themselves and 
impressing themselves upon me. That evening less 
than an hour before the doors opened, I insisted on 
the boys going to New York with me, and spending 



152 PREMONITIONS 

the night at a hotel convenient to the railroad, by 
which we could start in the early morning. I felt 
ashamed of the feeling that impelled me to act thus, 
but there seemed no escape from it. That night the 
theatre was destroyed by fire with a loss of some 
300 lives. Had I been present, from my previous 
examination of the building, I would certainly have 
taken my children over the stage, when the fire 
broke out, in order to escape by a private exit, and 
would just as certainly have been lost as were all 
those who trusted to it, for that passage, by an 
accident, could not be used. 

" I have never had a presentiment before or since. 
I am not in the habit of changing my plans without 
good reasons, and on this occasion I did so only 
with the greatest reluctance." 

Feb. 1885. Sir W. Barrett wrote: — "I was en- 
abled to see the narrator, who is in active service in 
the United States Army, and permits me to give his 
name ; the names of other persons who could confirm 
the narratives were also given to me, but not for 
publication." 

The following account of a premonitory vision was 
received by S.P.R. from Mr. Alfred Cooper, of 9 
Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square. This account 
was orally confirmed by him to Mr. E. Gurney, 
June 6th, 1888. It is written by Cooper, but 
attested also by the Duchess of Hamilton. 

"A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of 
L., in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, 
to see him professionally. After I had finished 
seeing him we went' into the drawing-room, where 
the Duchess was, and the Duke said to me, " Oh, 
Cooper; how is the Earl?" The Duchess said, 
'What Earl?' and on my answering 'Lord L.' she 
replied ' That is very odd. I have had a most ex- 



PREMONITIONS 153 

traordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in 
bed a short time I was not exactly asleep, but 
thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. 
The actors in it were Lord L., in a chair, as if in a 
fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. 
He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a red 
lamp was distinctly shown.' I then said, ' I am 
attending Lord L. at present ; there is very little the 
matter with him ; he is not going to die ; he will be 
all right very soon.' 

" Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, 
but at the end of six or seven days after this I was 
called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation 
of both lungs. I called Sir William Jenner, but in 
six days he was a dead man. There were two male 
nurses attending him ; one had been taken ill. But 
when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess was 
exactly represented. He was standing near a bath 
over the Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. 
There was the bath, with the red lamp over it. It is 
rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and 
this brought the story to my mind. The vision seen 
by the Duchess was seen two weeks before the death 

of Lord L. Signed. Mary Hamilton. 

Alfred Cooper." 

Mr. Myerb notes that " an independent and con- 
cordant account has been given to me by a gentleman 
to whom the Duchess related the dream on the 
morning after its occurrence." 

The following dreams, all told in detail before 
fulfilment, are worth consideration. 

Professor N. reported on August 29, 1900, that on 
that same morning he and his wife had arrived at 
Sedgwick, Maine, to stay with her parents who had 
been spending the summer there with their young 



154 PREMONITIONS 

son, K. aged 13^. " K. met us at the wharf, and on 
the way up told us something about being chased by 
a white horse, but I paid little attention to him. 
After dinner K. came into the room and said some- 
thing to his mother — I did not catch the exact words 
— about his dream of sometime ago, of being chased 
by a white horse. Great excitement ensued, all 
began to talk at once. I scented something of value 
for S.P.R., and succeeded in quieting the confusion. 
Then I made them tell their stories in due order and 
took them down in writing." 

It appeared that before they went to Sedgwick, K. 
had a severe nightmare from which his mother woke 
him, and he then told her that he had dreamt that he 
was walking on a wharf, and had just passed some 
people who were getting out of a rowing boat, when 
he heard warning cries ; he glanced over his shoulder 
and saw a white horse, mouth open, long jaw, about 
to bite him, — then he sprang into the water, — and 
woke up to find his mother shaking him." 

When K. went to the wharf that day to meet his 
sister and brother-in-law, all this exactly came to 
pass ; except that instead of jumping into the water 
when the horse attacked him, he jumped into a gang- 
way which ran from the level of the pier to high 
water mark. K.'s own account of this fulfilment was 
corroborated that same day by a man on the wharf, 
who had seen the occurrence, and who remarked, 
' That's a very vicious horse, they shouldn't allow 
him on the wharf.' 

The Rev. R.J., wrote on Aug. 22, 1889, 11.30 p.m. 
(postmark Courtrai, Aug. 23.) the following in a 
letter to his wife. '■ I do hope you will be careful in 
regard to the house. This morning at two I woke in 
a dream. I had a frightful idea that the vicarage 
was being broken into. I thought I was in the L. 



PREMONITIONS 155 

and heard the alarm bell ring. I almost determined 
to write home at once, and ask you to have H.M. 
to sleep in the house. Had it been possible I should 
have started for home at once, so fixed was the idea 
of danger in my mind." 

On Aug. 24, a burglary did in fact take place, not 
at Mr. J's house, but at one near by. Writing the 
following November, Mr. J. explains, " The substance 
of the dream was that a burglary Tiad been, or was 
being committed, and that the persons concerned in 
it were to my knowledge in some fields at the back 
of the house where the real burglary occurred, and 
that the alarm bell was ringing at the Hall. Then my 
thoughts (distinguishing dream from conscious thought) 
went naturally to my own home, and I thought, still 
sleepy, that the dream was intended to be a presenti- 
ment of mischief to my home." A statement from 
the village policeman gives the time of the burglary 
as being " between the hours of 1 1 p.m. (Aug. 23.) 
and 6 a.m. Aug. 24, 1889." 

Pro. V. 337. 

Mrs. Stella, Chieri, Italy, writes : — "The following 
occurred to my mother, the most matter of fact 
person, and not one to be easily impressed. About 
three years ago, I received a telegram from her, from 
London, saying, " Take care of the plate ; will write 
and explain." I did not understand what she meant, 
but, nevertheless, I took extra precautions in shutting 
up the house at night, and awaited my mother's 
letter. It appears she had dreamed that she had 
been roused from her sleep by a noise, that she had 
got up to see what it was, and went out on to the 
staircase, and on looking down she saw our dining- 
room, here in Italy, and a man was filling a bag with 
the plate, which another man was handing to him from 



156 PREMONITIONS 

the sideboard. She heard one man say to the other, 
in Italian, ' To-morrow we will go to Genoa and 
spend Sunday,' (that making it Friday that they 
were robbing us). One of the men, looking up 
suddenly, saw my mother, and began mounting the 
stairs with a long knife in his hand, and the fright 
woke my mother. But the impression was so vivid 
that she sent me a telegram the next morning 
(Thursday), being quite sure that our house would 
be robbed on the Friday night. It was not, however ; 
but the following Wednesday a band of robbers 
broke into the house nearest to us and carried 
off everything, but they were taken the next day, 
when they confessed that they intended on the 
Friday to rob our house, and then go to Genoa. 
Among the things taken with them were a bag 
and a long knife, answering to the ones my mother 
described. My mother has great common sense, 
and held until then all superstitious presentiments 
and belief in dreams to be really wrong, yet on this 
occasion her dream was so clear that she not only 
acted in contradiction of all her previous opinions, 
but even thought it sufficiently urgent to necessitate 
a telegram." 

Pro. V. 

Mrs. Mackenzie, Lamington House, Tain, Ross- 
shire, writes : — " One morning last spring, when at 
breakfast, I suddenly remembered a dream I had 
had the night before, and told it to my house party 
who numbered ten individuals. I should say it was 
rather a joke against me that I believed in dreams 
and that very often my dreams came true ; so when 
I mentioned having had a curious dream, I was 
greeted with the usual joking remarks. ' Well,' said 
I, ' this is what I dreamt. I thought there were 



PREMONITIONS 157 

several people In our drawing-room, among others 
Mr. J., and I left the room for a few minutes to see if 
supper was ready, and when I came back to the 
drawing-room I found the carpet, which was a new 
one, all covered with black spots. I was very angry, 
and when Mr. J. said it was ink stains, I retorted, 
Don't say so, I know it has been burnt. And I 
counted five patches. So ends the dream.' Well, 
we all went to church, it being Sunday, and on our 
return Mr. J. came with us for luncheon, a thing he 
had never done before, and some others joined our 
party. I went into the dining-room to see if things 
were ready, and then going back into the drawing- 
room I noticed a spot near the door, and asked who 
had been in with dirty feet ; being a new carpet I 
was particular. Mr. J. as in my dream, said it was 
surely ink, and then pointed out some more spots, 
when I called out, ' Oh, my dream ! my dream ! my 
new carpet ! Burnt.' As we afterwards discovered 
the housemaid had allowed the fire to go out, and 
had carried in live coal from another room in the 
shovel, which she had tilted against the door, and 
spilt the coal on the carpet, burning five holes." 

Corroborated by Miss Mackenzie. 

The next case is difficult to classify ; it is uncertain 
whether it was a dream or a vision ; and it includes 
a clairvoyant impression of a contemporary event, 
the dog being led home by the porter ; and a 
premonitory impression of an incident which took 
place nearly an hour later — the porter telling Mrs. 
B., " Your dog is found." 

Miss after describing how her friend Mrs. B. 

lost her favourite dog Barrie, whilst travelling by 
railway, after the family had removed from the north, 
to the east of England ; goes on to say : — " The days 
passed by, and we never failed to include the station in 



158 PREMONITIONS 

our daily walk, always with the same question on our 
lips, ' Any news of Mrs. B.'s dog ? ' but a favourable 
reply never came. 

" On Friday of the same week we arranged to visit 
Cambridge and to spend several hours in that most 
interesting town. On the return journey, being very 
tired, most complete was the silence which fell upon 
us. As far as I can remember, no one had mentioned 
Barrie's name since the usual inquiry had been made 
in the morning, and indeed as a week had now 
elapsed since his loss we were beginning to give up 
the hope of recovering him. 

" Like all the rest I was in a semi-sleeping condition. 
I do not say asleep, for then what follows would be a 
dream, and certainly it was scarcely that — no, merely 
a tired condition of mind and body. I felt that 
peculiar sensation, which I am sure has been felt by 
many, that is, that though sufficiently awake to know 
all that is going on around, still your real mind seems 
to be far away and almost separate from your 
surroundings. It seemed to me that I was walking 
down a road, and before me I could see quite plainly 
the collie dog of which we had spoken and thought 
so much, being led by a man who held him by a 
rope. I followed him with interest until he was 
taken up to a door which I saw opened, and the 
flood of light within showed me the well-known form 
of Mrs. B.'s maid-servant. It all appeared to me so 
vivid that I suddenly started up and said to Mrs. B. 
■ Edith, Barrie is found.' Everyone was taken aback 
by the suddenness of this statement, and Mrs. B. 
laughingly said, ' Nonsense, how can you possibly 
know, and why raise false hopes in my mind ? ' I 
was then quite awake, and looking most intently at 
her, replied, ■ Yes, he is found, and when we arrive at 
station the first thing to happen will be that a 



PREMONITIONS 159 

porter will come up and say, ' Mrs. B. your dog is 
found.' Then I went on describing- the scene of 
which I had just imagined myself to be a witness, 
saying, ' Ah, there I see him going down the road. 
Now the maid is opening the door.' Here there was 
a universal laugh, and at last I joined in it, whereat 
all visions vanished. Still I maintained my opinion 
that the collie was safe ; and when Dr. B. remarked 
that if all happened as I said I should have a pair of 
gloves, I agreed, and promised him a pair if Barrie 
should prove still to be missing. 

"In about forty minutes after this the train drew up 

at station, ahd Dr. B. opened the door and 

stepped out, just as he was giving his hand to Edith, 
a porter came up to her, and said, ' Mrs. B. your dog 
is found.' She exclaimed, ' Where is he ? ' The 
man replied by whistling to a fellow porter, who 
brought the dog from the other end of the platform, 
and Barrie was soon overwhelming his mistress with 
rather boisterous caresses. On our way home, Dr. 
B. remarked I was only entitled to one glove, as the 
scene I had so graphically described of the dog being 
led down the road, was a myth. But on our arrival 
at the house, our first greeting from the maid was, 
' Oh, it really is your dog, Mrs. B. ; I would not take 
him in when the porter brought him about three- 
quarters of an hour ago.' I was paid the bet." 

The incident happened in April 1884, and the 
above account was written some weeks later. 

Dr. and Mrs. B. added to the account a corroborative 
note, signed by both of them, to the following effect : — 
" Without accepting any psychical theory whatever 
as bearing upon the subject, we can state that the 
above mentioned facts have been, to the best of our 
recollection, quite correctly recorded." 

There are certain well known types of death 



160 PREMONITIONS 

warnings ; I say well known advisedly, because there 
are few people indeed who have not in the course of 
their lives come across such cases at first hand. 
Knocks as of a heavy mallet on wood are probably 
most frequently recorded ; but the scream of the 
Banshee, and the sound of a carriage or coach driving 
up to the front door are traditional in many families, 
and well-authenticated instances are not uncommon. 

Victor Hugo, in his Diary, (published in 1900), 
records an instance of knocks preceding a death, 
combined with a curious series of coincidences 
connected with the unlucky number thirteen. 

The first entry is : — 

" 22, December, 1870. Leopold sent me thirteen 
fresh eggs." 

" 5, January, 1871. We were thirteen at table." 

" 12, January, 1871. We were thirteen again. 
Dinner cost 13 francs per person." 

(They then left Paris for Bordeaux. Subsequently 
Mme. Hugo remarked, ' The number thirteen haunts 
us. Every Thursday in January we were thirteen at 
table. We left Paris on the 13th of February. We 
were thirteen in the saloon carriage. We are staying 
at 13 Rue Saint-Maur.') 

" 13, March, 1871. This night I could not sleep, I 
meditated on numbers, which was the subject of 
Pythagoras' reveries. I was thinking of all these 
thirteens oddly grouped and mingled with what we 
have been doing since the 1st January ; and I was 
saying to myself as well, that I should leave this 
house where I am on the 13th of March. At this 
instant the some nocturnal knocking that I have 
already heard twice before in this room, (three blows 
like blows of a hammer on a board), was produced 
quite close to me." 

(On that same March 13th, Charles Hugo, Victor 



PREMONITIONS 161 

Hugo's son, died suddenly and quite unexpectedly, 
in a fit of apoplexy.) 

" 14, March, 1871. I read over what I wrote on 
the morning of the 13th, about this knocking heard 
at night." 

Mr. Myers, (S.P.R. Proceedings XI.) gives 
particulars of an interesting series of death warnings 
which I give here in a slightly abridged form. 

" In several families there is a tradition that some 
special sign precedes or accompanies the transition of 
the head of the house, or of certain of its members. 
In the case of one of these families I have received 
evidence to the persistence of a given type of 
' warning ' during a period of three centuries." 

Extract from Dr. Robert Plot's ' Natural 
History of Oxfordshire.' Ed. 1677. I. "I must 
add also a relation, as strange as it is true, of 
the family of one Captain Wood, late of Bampton, 
Oxfordshire, now of Brise Norton. Some whereof 
before their death have had warning given them 
by a certain knocking, either at the door with- 
out, or on table or shelves within ; the number of 
stroaks and distance between them, and the place 
where, for the most part respecting the circumstances 
of the persons to dye, or their deaths themselves." 
Dr. Plot then recounts with much detail how Mrs. 
Elenor Wood in 1661 heard a knocking upon the 
door, apparently an outside door ; and a fortnight 
later her son-in-law died in London. 

II. About three years later three great knocks 
were heard inside the house by Mrs. Elenor Wood, 
her son Mr. Basil Wood and his wife ; and by several 
servants. Within little more than six months, three 
of the family died in the house. 

III. In August 1674, Mr. Basil Wood junior, his 
wife, and her father and sister, heard ' upon a table 

L 



162 PREMONITIONS 

in their chamber, as they stood by it, two several 
knocks struck, as it were with a cudgel.' Two deaths 
took place within the year. 

IV. Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd noted in the 
margin of his copy of Dr. Plot's book, " The said 
warning was heard at the death of Mr. George 
Woodd, of Richmond, Surrey. A knocking was 
heard by Mrs. Woodd the night he died. He said 
' Oh, it is the Woodd's warning, I shall die before 
morning.' He did so. March n, 1784." 

V. Basil George Woodd died at Hillfield, Hamp- 
stead, August 28th, 1872, aged 91 years. Hannah 
Wardman, an old servant, living in his own house, at 
Harrogate, Yorkshire, heard knocks outside the front 
door the night he died away from home at 
Hampstead. She got up, and went down in the 
middle of the night, opened the door and looked 
round ; but no one was to be seen. Mr. Gleave, the 
butler, also heard knocks at the pantry window ; and 
the dog howled piteously, One of the men in the 
garden remarked, " The old master will soon be gone 
and the dog knows it.' Hannah Wardman had 
never heard of the family superstition. 

VI. Mr. Charles H. L. Woodd died December 
15th, 1893, between 8 and 9 a.m. His son the Rev. 
Trevor Basil Woodd related, " On Thursday evening, 
Dec. 14th, 1893, after church I was sitting before my 
fire. I knew my father was ill, and had a presenti- 
ment that he was dangerously ill. As I sat, I 
distinctly heard three knocks, perhaps more, like the 
sound of someone emptying a tobacco pipe upon the 
bars of my fire grate." Mrs. Dumbell, daughter of 
Mr. C. H. L. Wood, also heard knockings three times 
on the day before her father died. 

VII. Basil Thomas Woodd died June 4th, 1895, 
10.30 p.m. His two daughters, one being at West 



PREMONITIONS 163 

Kensington, and the other at Hampstead, heard 
knockings on the previous day, June 3rd. They were 
not in the least anxious about their father, who 
appeared to be in his usual health ; until suddenly 
seized with a fit of apoplexy, dying a few hours 
afterwards. Two nieces also heard knocks shortly 
before their uncle's death, and mentioned the fact 
before they heard he had been taken ill. 

Mr. Myers commented on the above, "Can it be 
possible that when communication of this sort has 
been found feasible by some group on the other side, 
there is a continuity of effort to sustain it ? — or that 
each decedent in succession finds in the previous 
history a suggestion to attempt a similar message 
himself? — or that there is in the family a hereditary 
aptitude for the same type of percipience ? "* 

An incident — apparently a death warning— in 
which sight as well as sound came into play, is the 
following : — 



*Since Mr. Myers published the account of the Woodd 
warnings, the warning has been heard once again. 

The Rev. T. B. Woodd has sent the following report to the 
Society for Psychical Research : — " On Monday, October 20th, 
1919, at about 9.30 p.m., I was walking upstairs and I heard a 
strange knocking outside the house (S. John's Vicarage, Fitzroy 
Square.) I called my servant, Cyril Cooke, and asked him 
whether he heard it and what it was. He could not say. I 
said, ' It is the Woodd knocking. Someone is going to die.' 
On Wednesday, Oct. 22nd, I was called by telegram to see my 
cousin, Miss Katherine Isabella Basil Woodd, as she was very 
ill. (I had written that very day inviting myself to lunch on the 
following Saturday, not knowing she was unwell.) She died at 
7.30 next morning, Oct* 23rd. My servant reported what I had 
said to my housekeeper, Lydia Wilkins. I did not remember 
it again until Saturday the 25th. Cyril Cooke had never heard 
of the family superstition and rather laughingly told my house- 
keeper I thought someone would die. Trevor Basil Woodd, 
Oct. 30th, 1 9 19." 



i6 4 PREMONITIONS 

Letter from the Rev. Edward T. Vaughan, 
Langleybury Vicarage, King's Langley, August 25, 
1884. "Some three or four years back, I had 
occasion to visit a parishioner who was seriously ill, 
one afternoon in the winter time when it was growing 
dark. I had seen him several times before since his 
illness commenced, and had always found him in the 
same bedroom. On this occasion I had been praying 
with him, and his wife was kneeling at the opposite 
side of the bed to myself. As I was saying the last 
words of the prayer, we (the woman and myself) 
distinctly saw a small table, which stood about a yard 
from the foot of the bed, rise two or three inches 
from the ground and come down with a violent 
thump upon the floor, so loudly that the man, who 
was lying with his eyes closed, started up and asked, 
with some terror, what had occasioned it. On 
examining the table, I found that a glass with 
medicine in it, which stood on the table with several 
other articles, had been so shaken that some of the 
contents were spilt. My first idea was that some- 
thing had been thrown down in the room below, 
where my wife, a sister of the woman's, and an aged 
uncle were sitting. On going downstairs and in- 
quiring, I found that this was not so ; that they had 
been sitting perfectly quiet in the room, and thought 
we had thrown down something in the bedroom. 
There was no one else in the house. The man died 
about a week after this took place. I add my name 
as you wish to show this to others. E. T. Vaughan, 
Vicar of Langleybury." 

On further inquiries being made four years later, 
Mrs. Vaughan wrote on June 27, 1888, as follows: — 
" In confirmation of the story of Wilson's death-bed, 
I can say I was sitting in the room below the sick 
man's with two other people, (his sister-in-law and 



PREMONITIONS 165 

uncle), in perfect silence, as every word read in the 
room above could be distinctly heard by us. Just as 
the last words of the prayer were being said, we were 
startled by a loud and sudden noise, as if some heavy 
piece of furniture had fallen in the room above. My 
first impression was that the man was taken worse, 
and that his wife, moving hastily to him, had 
knocked over a table. None of us spoke, though we 
started and looked at each other, and expected to 
hear someone called ; but almost the next minute I 
heard Mr. Vaughan address the man on leaving, and 
come downstairs with the wife. I went to meet them 
with her sister, and though nothing more was said by 
any of us than 'good-bye,' I saw by all the faces that 
something unusual had happened. As soon as we 
were out of the house I said to Mr. Vaughan, ' What 
was that noise just as you were reading the prayers ? ' 
and he told me the story you have heard, and it 
formed the principal topic of our long walk home, 
wondering what it was, and trying to explain it, 
without in the least coming to any conclusion but 
greater wonder. E. L. Vaughan." 

Mr. Myers commented, "This is a brief and simple 
incident ; but it is particularly hard to explain by 
ordinary causes — such as an earthquake, or a mis- 
taken memory." 

In Mrs Henry Sidgwick's article on Premonitions, 
(Prov. V.) instances are given of the wailing sounds 
preceding a death, which in Ireland are attributed to 
a Banshee. 

Mrs Levey, 7 Castle Terrace, Haverfordwest, 
wrote: — "On the night of 27th November, 1836, my 
mother lay dying, at 9 o'clock, on a night of great 
rain. There came a fearful wail of a woman's voice 
swaying to and fro past the windows. I ran to the 
window, but no human being could be there, as the 



166 PREMONITIONS 

room was two pair stairs up, and no houses near. 
She died at half past ten. 

"On the evening of the 9th of August, 1844, my 
two sisters and self were sitting together, when a 
fearful cry came from the street. We ran to the 
window — no one was to be seen — no house near — a 
moonlight night. Our eldest brother, a doctor, died 
very suddenly on the 10th. 

" My father and family sat at dinner on the evening 
of the 4th February, 1848. The same fearful cry or 
wail filled our house. I mentally said ' If that 
happened in the country, they would say someone at 
the table would die.' My youngest brother, 23, died 
quite suddenly at 8 o'clock, on the morning of 
the 5th. 

"Same occurrence upon my father's death in 1867. 
Same at the death of a sister in 1869. Same at 
death of next brother, a doctor of medicine, in 1870. 

" I had just awoke, about 4 o'clock in the morning, 
in the month of June, 1877. I was horrified to hear, 
(as I thought), my four young nieces on the stairs 
crying in the most fearful manner. I got up to light 
a candle, as the room was dark, but opened my door, 
and to my surprise, no person was there, and it was 
broad daylight. All the inmates of the house were 
asleep. Soon after, on the 20th June, a letter came 
from the captain of the ship my young nephew was 
coming from Canada in, to say that three young men 
fell overboard in a storm ; two were saved, but my 
nephew lost. Upon this occasion the house dog 
howled in a most fearful manner, and was found 
crouched down, hair on end, in the coal cellar. . . . 
I felt, having heard it so many times, it must be 
what we call in Ireland ' The Banshee.' I may 
remark that upon the deaths of the three who died 
suddenly, it was more fearful than any." 



PREMONITIONS 167 

Two sisters, Mrs Treloar, and Mrs Gardiner, gave 
accounts of a wailing sound which preceded the 
deaths of both their father and mother. Mrs 
Treloar thus describes the former instance : — " At 
between 1 and 2 o'clock we were all asleep, when 
the most extraordinary sound woke the household. 
I got up, lit my candle, went past my sister's room 
and found her up also. The sound as I went there 
seemed to rush past me, and was like an awful 
howling followed by shriek upon shriek, accompanied 
by what seemed a strong wind, although everything 
out of doors was perfectly still. My sister and I 
rushed to my brother's room, and found him up ; the 
three servants also were coming down the stairs from 
the top of the house. The cook burst into tears and 
said, ' Oh, the master ! That is his warning.' The 
sound was still continuing. We went into my 
father's room, and found him sleeping most 
peacefully." 

Another type of warning, popularly supposed to 
precede a death, is the sound, or sometimes the 
sight of a carriage, or coach and four, driving by or 
near the house in which the death takes place. An 
instance of a funeral being seen, where no funeral 
apparently was, is given by Mrs Sidgwick : — The 
Rev. P. A. L. Wood, Rector of Newent, Gloucester- 
shire, sent the following, written by a Miss H., who 
was known to him. " My mother and I were once 
driving in Somersetshire with an old lady of nearly 
80 years of age. She suddenly called to the servants 
to stop the carriage and draw up to the side of the 
road, which was done, though we wondered at such 
an unaccountable order. ' Now you can go on,' she 
said presently, and added, turning to my mother, 'I 
always like to stop while a funeral is passing.' The 
road was a long straight one, and quite empty of 



1 68 PREMONITIONS 

even a foot-passenger, so we laughed at the old lady, 
and told her so ; and she repeated, ' Well, it is very- 
odd, I certainly thought I saw one. How foolish the 
servants must have thought me.' The next day 
occurred the perfectly sudden death of her most 
intimate friend and nearest neighbour — an old 
gentleman who used to read to her every day." 

In answer to questions Miss H. wrote :— " The 
drive took place about four o'clock in the afternoon 
on a fine bright day. We were staying at Weston- 
super-Mare, where the old lady and gentleman lived, 
so I heard of his death myself from the old lady's 
daughter, the day after it happened. She reminded 
me and my mother then of the old lady's idea the 
day before." 

I have not discovered any well-authenticated 
instance of the death-watch warning, but the follow- 
ing series of incidents presents points of similarity. 
It is a most praiseworthy custom of members of the 
S.P.R. to send particulars of any apparently super- 
normal occurrence, immediately, by post to some 
member of the Council, so that, if it eventually prove 
to be veridical, the date of the postmark may afford 
unimpeachable evidence as to its date. In this case 
the postmark, Sept. 20, on the envelope of Mrs 
Verrall's letter, affords proof that the ' ticking ' 
occurred two days before the misfortune it appears 
to have foretold. 

" 5 Selwyn Gardens, Cambridge, September 20, 
1898. 3 p.m. — Dear Mr Myers, Just a line for the 
stamp of the post, — in case anything has 'occurred,' 
— to say that this afternoon, at 2.30, I heard the 
curious ticking which I think I have mentioned to 
you. It comes usually, if not always, when I am 
lying down, and may be due to some physical cause ; 
but it has at least once been associated with the 



PREMONITIONS 169 

illness of a friend, so I make a point of noting it, and 
I suppose the stamp of the post is desirable. But 
absit omen. M. de G. Verrall." 

Forty hours subsequently, on September 22, Mrs. 
Verrall's sister, when landing from a steamer, made a 
false step, and fell into the water, ' it was very 
nearly drowning. The great danger was being 
sucked beneath the ship.' 

Writing on November 11, 1899, Mrs. Verrall 
summarised the occasions when she had heard this 
ticking as follows: — "In 1888 the ticking persisted, 
at irregular intervals, for three weeks, at a time when 
there was great anxiety among the members of my 
household, unknown to me, concerning the health of 
a child. The ticking ceased when I was made aware 
of the precarious condition of the child. 

"In 1 89 1, for three or four months, the ticking was 
heard by me at irregular intervals, but desisted after 
the occurrence of a death. 

" In July, 1892, I heard and recorded the tick- 
ing, as described in the Journal for November, 
on the night on which a friend was taken seriously 
ill. 

"In September, 1898, I heard and recorded the 
ticking, thirty-two hours before the alarming accident 
to my sister, described in the Journal. 

" On no other occasion have I heard it. I did once 
hear a death-watch when I was very young. The 
sound made by the death-watch is louder and more 
regular than the ' ticking ' ; I am certain that the 
sound which I have been describing is not made by 
a beetle, nor by any clock or watch." Mrs. Verrall 
suggested that " it seemed that in some cases mental 
disturbance, anxiety, or alarm, too indefinite to be 
recognised by the consciousness, may manifest itself 
in this form of hallucination, and thus the idea of 



170 PREMONITIONS 

impending misfortune might become associated with 
a ticking sound:" — as that of the death-watch. 

After considering the subject of premonitions of 
ordinary or trifling events, and of death warnings, 
I would say that the former seem to me to be far 
more inexplicable than the latter. The tremendous 
event of passing over may well be known beforehand 
by those on the other side, and they by certain 
phenomena may seek to prepare friends on earth. I 
do not assert this is so, I merely say it is possible. 

But how can we explain a premonitory dream of 
the burning of holes on a new carpet ? Yet we have 
satisfactory evidence that such a dream occurred. 

Sir Oliver Lodge remarks, — " Prognostication can 
hardly be part of the evidence for survival, the two 
things are not essential to each other, they hardly 
appear to be connected." And yet the fact remains 
that prognostications are inextricably intermingled 
with every type of psychical phenomena. In this 
book instances of premonition are to found under 
the heads of Clairvoyance, Crystal-gazing, Mediums, 
and Hallucinations. 

In considering whether a medium's powers are 
genuinely supernormal, or merely fraudulent, pre- 
vision affords an almost infallible test. It is difficult 
to be certain that knowledge of a past event has not 
been acquired by normal means : but when a medium 
foretells an event, or a series of events, which could 
hardly have been anticipated by any process of 
ordinary inference, strong evidence is afforded that 
the medium possesses supernormal powers. In this 
connection the following case is interesting : it is 
given in a recent issue of the S.P.R. Journal. Capt. 
' X ' R.E. states :— 

-"In August 191 3, I met a Belgian lady, a native 
of. Brussels, at the house of some mutual friends. 



PREMONITIONS 171 

This lady was reputed to have had some remarkable 
successes in forecasting events concerning her friends 
and acquaintances. On this occasion she made the 
following statements with regard to myself. 

" First, that in November of the same year, I should 
meet and become engaged to a lady whom she 
described. 

"Secondly, that in January 191 5 I should become 
an officer in the British Army on account of a war 
with Germany. 

"Thirdly, that I should be married shortly after I 
became an officer. 

" Fourthly, that I should come to France ' to fight 
the Germans' in November, 1916. 

" Being very sceptical of this sort of thing I noted 
the above statements in my diary at the time. 

" All of them subsequently proved to be correct in 
practice. That is to say : — 

"First, in November 191 3, I met and became 
engaged to a lady answering closely to the description 
given. This lady was entirely unknown either to me 
or to the Belgian lady in August 191 3. 

" Secondly, I was gazetted to a commission in 
January 1915. 

"Thirdly, I was married in August 191 5. 
r " Fourthlv, I came out to France in November 
1916." 



CHAPTER VIII 

HALLUCINATIONS 

The late Professor Henry Sidgwick, explaining the 
use of the word Hallucination, wrote : — " We require 
some one general term, and the best we can find 
to include all the species is ' Hallucination.' I admit 
the word to be open to some objection, because some 
people naturally understand from it that the im- 
pression so described is entirely false and morbid. 
But I need not say . . . that this is not our view." 
(i.e. not the view of the S.P.R.) " Many of these 
experiences — though doubtless they all involve some 
disturbance of the normal action of the nervous 
system — have no traceable connection with disease 
of any kind : and a certain number are, as we hold, 
reasonably regarded as ' veridical ' or truth-telling ; 
they imply in the percipient a capacity above the 
normal, of receiving knowledge under certain rare 
conditions. 

" Why then, it may be asked, do we use a term 
that implies erroneous and illusory belief? I answer, 
first, because in every experience that we call a 
Hallucination there is an element of erroneous 
belief, though it may be only momentary, and though 
it may be the means of communicating a truth that 
could not otherwise have been known. If I seem to 



HALLUCINATIONS 173 

see the form of a friend pass through my room, I 
must have momentarily the false belief that his 
physical organism is occupying a portion of the space 
of my room, though a moment's reflection may 
convince me that this is not so, and though I may 
immediately draw the inference that he is passing 
through a crisis of life some miles off, and this 
inference may turn out to be true. . . The word 
'apparition' is no doubt a neutral word that might 
be used of all visual experiences of this kind, but it 
could only be used of visual cases. Usage would 
not allow us to apply it to apparent sounds, or 
apparent touches. I think then, that we must use 
' hallucinations of the senses ' as a general term. . . 
meaning simply to denote by it a sensory effect, 
which we cannot attribute to any external physical 
cause of the kind which would ordinarily produce this 
effect." 

Apparitions of dying or deceased persons, to 
friends and relatives at a distance, have been re- 
corded so frequently, and with such a weight of 
evidence, that few people doubt their veridity. But 
it is not as commonly realised that apparitions of 
living persons are also seen, sometimes as a result 
of deliberate effort on the part of the person who 
appears ; sometimes when that person has no 
consciousness in the matter. Various experiments 
in this direction have been reported by S.P.R. from 
time to time : I quote the following ; substituting 
pseudonyms for real names. 

" The agent, Miss Vaughan stated, — ' One night 
in September 1888 I was lying awake in bed reading. 
I had recently been studying with interest various 
cases of astral projection in Phantasms of the Living, 
and I distinctly remember making up my mind that 
night to try whether I could manage to accomplish 



174 HALLUCINATIONS 

a projection of myself by force of will-concentration. 
The room next to mine was occupied by a friend 
of mine, Miss Jackson, who was not at all of an 
excitable turn of mind. . . That night I perfectly 
recall lying back on my pillow with a resolute but 
half doubtful and amused determination to make 
Miss Jackson see me. . . After a few minutes I 
felt dizzy, and only half conscious. I don't know 
how long this state lasted, but I do remember 
emerging from it into a conscious state, and thinking 
I had better leave off, as the strain had exhausted 
me. I gave up, and changing into an easy position 
I thought I had failed and needlessly fatigued 
myself for an impossible fancy. I blew out my 
candle ; at the instant I was startled by hearing an 
indistinct sound, which was repeated, and then there 
was silence. Soon after my clock struck 2 a.m. 

" Next morning Miss Jackson said ' Had I gone 
into her room to frighten her during the night ? ' 
She declared I seemed to come to her and bend 
over her. From what she said I concluded it must 
have been between 1 and 2 a.m. . . I was in my 
ordinary state of health, and not at all excited, but 
merely bent on trying an experiment." 

The Percipient's account, dated 1889, is — "During 
the summer of 1888 I was staying with the Miss 
Vaughans. We had been discussing the phe- 
nomena of people leaving their bodies, and appearing 
in their astral forms. . . I was perfectly wide 
awake, when suddenly I saw Miss Vaughan 
standing by my bedside in her ordinary dressing 
gown. The moonlight came in at the window 
sufficiently for me to distinguish her face clearly, 
and her figure partially. I sat up in bed, and said, 
rather crossly, ' What do you want here, Alice ? ' 
As she didn't answer, I immediately struck a light 



HALLUCINATIONS 175 

and she was gone. I may have spoken sufficiently 
loudly to be heard in the next room." This case 
if it stood alone could hardly be considered con- 
clusive, as several normal explanations suggest 
themselves as possible, though not particularly 
probable. 

The following case was sent by Dr. M. L. 
Holbrook to Dr. Hodgson, with this comment, " I 
think the enclosed case is a very good one. I have 
known of it for years. . . The son's testimony 
was written out without any consultation with his 
parents, or knowledge of what they had said." 

The following is the account of the agent, Mr. 
Fosbrook. (pseudonym, real name and address 
given in S.P.R. Journal?) '"June 12, 1894. On 
the 5th of July, 1887, I left my home to go to New 
York to spend a few days. My wife was not feeling 
well when I left, and after I had started, I looked 
back and saw her standing at the door, looking dis- 
consolate and sad at my leaving. The picture 
haunted me all day, and at night before I went to 
bed, I thought I would try to find out if possible 
her condition. I undressed, and was sitting on 
the edge of the bed when I covered my face with 
my hands, and willed myself at home to see if I 
could see her. After a little, I seemed to be 
standing in her room, before the bed, and saw her 
lying there looking much better. I felt satisfied she 
was better, and so spent the week more comfortably 
regarding her condition. On Saturday I went home. 
When she saw me she remarked, ' I don't know 
whether I am glad to see you or not, for I thought 
something had happened to you. I saw you 
standing in front of the bed the night of the day 
you left, as plain as could be, and I have been 
worrying myself about you ever since. I sent to 



176 HALLUCINATIONS 

the office and to the depot daily to get some 
message from you.' " 

Mrs. Fosbrook wrote : — " I remember this ex- 
perience well. I saw him as plain as if he had been 
there in person. I did not see him in his night 
clothes, but in a suit that hung in the closet at 
home. It made me very anxious, for I felt that 
some accident or other had befallen him. I was on 
the rack all the time till Saturday, and if he had 
not come home then, I should have sent to him to 
find out if anything was wrong." 

The son, Mr. Edward Fosbrook, wrote : — " At the 
time in question I was living at S. going to and 
from my work, and stabling my horse at father's. I 
do not remember the date, but think it was about 
the middle of the week, that mother told me in the 
morning that ' she had seen father the night before, 
just before she retired for the night. His face was 
drawn and set as if he were either dead, or trying 
to accomplish something that was beyond him.' 
She watched very anxiously the balance of the week 
for a letter or telegram, but none came, and when 
no word came on Saturday she was almost crazy. 
He unexpectedly returned Saturday night . . . 
When mother questioned him as to the incident at 
the middle of the week, he said ' that he made up 
his mind to see her that night if possible, and had 
concentrated his will power on that one object,' with 
the result which you know. It gave him pleasure, 
and her a great deal of uneasiness." 

An account of an oral hallucination vouched for 
by five people, was sent to S.P.R. by the late Mr. 
Andrew Lang, the ladies concerned being friends ot 
his. The names are given in the Journal, but I 
have substituted pseudonyms. 

Miss Joan Snow wrote, — " On Friday night, Dec, 



HALLUCINATIONS 177 



/ / 



11, about 11 p.m., I was writing in my bedroom — 
the first room at the top of the staircase, which is a 
low one. The house was quite quiet, and I fancied 
the servants had gone to bed, so that I was surprised 
to hear footsteps coming along the passage down- 
stairs. I heard the steps come from the hall, past 
the foot of the staircase, and along the passage 
known as the nursery lobby. There they died away, 
and I heard no more. It was rather a quick decided 
step, accompanied by the rustle of a silk dress, and 
was so exactly like my mother's, that if I had not 
known her to be in Edinburgh, ill, at the time, I 
should not have had two doubts about it. I 
wondered which of the servants it could possibly be, 
thought I would ask in the morning, and went on 
writing. In a few minutes there was a knock at my 
door, and I opened it to find three scared and white- 
faced maids. They asked me if I had been down- 
stairs, and looked more scared than ever when I 
said ' No.' They then asked if I had heard steps, 
and when I said ' Yes, they sounded exactly like 
Mrs. Snow's,' they told me they had heard them as 
they sat in the kitchen, had gone to look in the hall 
and passage, and had seen no one. They then went 
to the (old) nursery, the room to which the passage 
where the steps were heard led, and asked my sister, 
whose bedroom it was, if she had left the room. 
She said No, but she had heard the steps. It was 
quite evident they thought that they had heard a 
ghost, and as my mother was rather seriously ill at 
the time, of course they concluded it was hers. We 
did not discuss the matter however, and I suggested 
burglars, took my poker, and went with them in a 
procession all over the house." 

The narrative of the cook, attested by the parlour- 
maid and housemaid, is as follows : — " On Friday 
M 



178 HALLUCINATIONS 

night December nth, 1896, about 11 p.m. we were 
all sitting by the fire in the kitchen. We heard steps 
in the passage coming from the hall, and going along 
by the nursery door. The housemaid, looked up 
and asked if I heard anything. I said, ' Yes, I 
thought I heard Mrs. Snow walking along with her 
skirts rustling, from the front door along by the 
nursery.' We had all heard it. I said I thought 
it was like a warning, and I said, ' I hope Mrs. Snow 
is not dead.' Then we rose and went to the door 
leading from the kitchen to the nursery passage, but 
saw nothing. Miss Cecily heard our steps, and came 
out, and asked what on earth was the matter. Miss 
Cecily said she heard it too, and thought it was one 
of us. Then we went upstairs to Miss Joan's room. 
She had heard it, and said she hoped there were no 
burglars about. We went all over the house and 
looked everywhere, but there was nothing to be seen. 
We then went to bed, and have never heard it again. 
We all thought Mrs. Snow must be dead." 

Miss Cecily Snow also corroborated the above 
statements, which were dated December, 17th, 1897; 
just one year after the occurrence described took 
place. 

Unlike most cases of the sort, we have in this 
instance a statement by the supposed ghost ; Mrs. 
Snow describes her own experience as follows : — 

" On Thursday, December 10th 1896, while visiting 
my niece in Edinburgh, I was seized with an acute 
attack of laryngitis. The evening of the next day, 
Friday, about n p.m. I had such a sensation of 
being suffocated that I felt as if I were dying, and 
would never see my home again. I was suddenly 
filled with an overpowering longing to be at home, 
and whether I fell asleep for a few moments and 
dreamed, I do not know ; but it seemed the next 



HALLUCINATIONS 179 

minute as if my desire were granted, and I felt I was 
really there. I was conscious of walking along the 
passage past the dressing-room door, and towards 
the room we call the nursery ; but I had hardly time 
to realise my own joy and relief when I found myself 
still lying in bed, and the feeling of suffocation from 
which I had had such a happy respite for a few 
moments, again tormenting me. When I returned 
home a week later I was told of the curious occurrence 
on the evening of Friday, December 1 1." 

It has always appeared to me that this case has 
not received as much attention as it merits ; the 
evidence for accuracy is exceptionally strong ; five 
percipients in absolute agreement as to what they 
heard, and the time they heard it ; and the ' ghost ' 
herself able to give her side of the experience, which 
exactly corroborated that of the five percipients. It 
is a particularly difficult incident to explain away ; 
but if at the time Mrs. Snow dreamed or imagined 
herself walking about her house, five persons actually 
heard her footsteps in exactly the part of the house 
she supposed herself to be in, then the whole case 
against the possibility of supernormal sounds would 
seem to collapse. As Professor William James said, 
the existence of one white crow proves that all crows 
are not black. 

But under what head this case should be classified 
is certainly debatable. Was it caused by telepathy ? — 
Mrs. Snow in her extremity of pain being a strong 
enough agent to affect her two daughters and three 
servants with the same hallucination. It may be 
noted that all five were probably beginning to feel 
sleepy, (it being 1 1 p.m.), and it is in this stage 
between sleeping and waking that people are most 
open to receive telepathic impressions. 

Those who believe in the existence of what is 



180 HALLUCINATIONS 

generally termed an ' astral body ' would say that 
during a few moments of unconsciousness, Mrs. 
Snow's astral body went home, and walked along 
the lobby from the front door. The cause of the 
occurrence is in our present state of knowledge a 
matter of doubt. But the fact seems proved by the 
evidence that when Mrs. Snow, presumably in her 
nightgown, was in bed in Edinburgh, she was heard 
to walk about in her own house, attired in a rustling 
silk dress. 

The following case of the appearance of a dying 
man to his little daughter, is also taken from the 
S.P.R. Journal. I have slightly abridged it. Mrs. 
B. wrote : — " I must mention that my husband was 
taken seriously, and as it proved hopelessly ill, when 
our little daughter, to whom he was passionately 
attached, was two and a half years of age ; and he 
was ordered by his doctors to travel. It is necessary 
here to mention — for on this hangs the strangest part 
of my tale — that up to this time my husband had 
only a moustache, which was exceedingly fair, but on 
leaving home he allowed his whiskers and his beard 
to grow, and they came on very dark. 

When he had been away from home six months — 
during which time he never saw either of his children — 
he had a stroke of paralysis. I was with him in 
Surrey, whilst my little girl and my boy were in 
Kent." (The children were under the care of an 
aunt of Mrs. B.'s, and her sister-in-law, Miss B.) 
The afternoon that Mr. B. lay dying " the two 
children were playing in the nursery, when, un- 
observed, the little girl ran out of the room, and all 
in the house were presently startled by her calling 
from the hall to her brother, in most delighted and 
excited tones, to come into the dining-room, for 
' poor papa ' had come home. My aunt, the servants, 



HALLUCINATIONS 181 

and my little son all ran to her, when she seized 
the boy by the hand and eagerly drew him into the 
room. Her surprise and disappointment to find it 
empty were great. She then told how she had drawn 
a chair to the sideboard (and there it was), that she 
might get to the biscuit-box ; when turning to mount 
it, she saw ' poor papa ' sitting in his arm chair ; that 
he put out his arms for ' baby to tiss him, but baby 
wouldn't 'cause he looked so funny, he had black 
whiskers all round here,' and the child pointed to her 
cheeks and chin. She had not seen her father for six 
months ; she had naturally never been told that he 
was growing a beard. She was questioned, and 
cross-questioned, but never varied her tale in one 
particular." 

Miss B. who had been absent from Kent, attending" 
her brother's deathbed in Surrey, wrote : — " On my 
returning home the night he died, the following 
strange incident was told me. My brother's little 
girl, nearly three, on the afternoon he was dying, 
thought she would go and get some biscuits, (a habit 
she had). In a few moments she called to her 
brother, ' Come into the dining-room, Boy, poor papa 
has come home, and he held out his arms for baby to 
go to him, but baby wouldn't because he had black- 
whiskers all round here.' This alarmed the aunt 
and the maid, who knew there was no one in the 
house, and who searched high and low, and found 
no one. It is my firm belief that my brother's spirit 
was constantly with his child, for she frequently 
complained that someone was ' blowing on her,' 
which ceased the day and moment he was buried." 

Persons who see, or think they see, phantasms, 
frequently state that a sensation of chill, or a cold 
wind, precedes or accompanies the apparition. It is 
noteworthy that this tiny child should have had this 



182 HALLUCINATIONS 

experience, as her tender years precluded all possibility 
of her knowing or understanding the experiences of 
others. 

A case of a hallucination, apparently caused by a 
dying person, is the following : — 

From Prince Victor Duleep Singh. 

"Highclere Castle, Newbury, November 8, 1894: — 

"On a Saturday in October, 1893, I was in Berlin 
with Lord Carnarvon. We went to a theatre together 
and returned before midnight. I went to bed, 
leaving as I always do, a bright light in the* room 
(electric light.) As I lay in bed I found myself 
looking at an oleograph which hung on the wall 
opposite my bed. I saw distinctly the face of my 
father, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, looking at me, 
as it were out of this picture ; not like a portrait of 
him, but his real head. The head about filled the 
picture frame. I continued looking, and still saw 
my father looking at me with an intent expression. 
Though not in the least alarmed, I was so puzzled 
that I got out of bed, to see what the picture really 
was. It was an oleograph commonplace picture of a 
girl holding a rose and leaning out of a balcony, an 
arch forming a background. The girl's face was 
quite small, whereas my father's head was the size of 
life and filled the frame. 

"I was in no special anxiety about my father at the 
time, and had for some years known him to be 
seriously out of health ; but there had been no news 
to alarm me about him. Next morning, Sunday, I 
told the incident to Lord Carnarvon. That evening, 
(Sunday) late on returning home, Lord Carnarvon 
brought two telegrams to my room and handed 
them to me. I said at once, ' My father is dead.' 
That was the fact. He had had an apoplectic 
seizure on the Saturday evening about nine o'clock, 



HALLUCINATIONS 183 

from which he never recovered, but continued 
unronscious and died on the Sunday, early in the 
afternoon. My father had often said to me that if 
I was not with him when he died he would try and 
come to me. 

"I am not subject to hallucinations, and have only 
once had any similar experience, when, as a school- 
boy, I fancied I saw the figure of a dead schoolboy 
who had died in the room which I slept in with my 
brother ; but I attach no importance to this. 

Victor Duleep Singh." 

Lord Carnarvon w r rote, ' I can confirm Prince 
Victor Duleep Singh's account. I heard the incident 
from him on Sunday morning. The same evening, 
at about 12 p.m., he received a telegram notifying 
him of his father's sudden illness and death. We 
had no previous notice of his father's illness. He has 
never told me of any similar previous occurrence. 
Carnarvon.' 

Maharajah Duleep Singh died on Sunday, 
October 22, 1893. 

In S.P.R. Proceedings, Vol. V, a case is recorded 
of a somewhat rare nature, inasmuch as the 
phantasm speaks, giving information subsequently 
proved to be correct. Col. H., known to Mr E. 
Gurney, wrote that at the commencement of the 
Transvaal War his friend J. P. being ordered to the 
front, they had breakfast together at the club, and 
parted at the club door. " ' Good-bye, old fellow,' I 
said, ' we shall meet again I hope.' ' Yes,' he said, 
'we shall meet again.' I can see him now, as he 
stood, smart and erect, with his bright black eyes 
looking intently into mine. A wave of the hand, 
as the hansom whirled him off, and he was gone. 

" The Transvaal war was at its height. One night, 



1 84 HALLUCINATIONS 

after reading for some time in the library of the club, 
I had gone to my rooms late. It must have been 
nearly one o'clock when I turned into bed. I had 
slept perhaps some three hours or so, when I woke 
with a start. The grey dawn was stealing in 
through the windows, and the light fell sharply and 
distinctly on the military chest of drawers which 
stood at the further end of the room, and which I 
had carried about with me everywhere during my 
service. Standing by my bed, between me and the 
chest of drawers, I saw a figure, which in spite of the 
unwonted dress — unwonted at least to me — and of a 
full black beard, I at once recognised as that of my 
old brother-officer. (The apparition wore khaki, and 
a pith helmet.) I noted all these particulars in the 
moment I started from sleep, and sat up in bed 
looking at him. His face was pale, but his bright 
black eyes shone as keenly as when a year and a 
half before, they had looked at me as he stood with 
one foot on the hansom, bidding me adieu. 

" Fully impressed for the brief moment that we 
were stationed together at C. in Ireland, or some- 
where, and thinking that I was in my barrack-room, 
I said, ' Hallo, P. am I late for parade? " P. looked 
at me steadily, and replied, 'I'm shot.' 'Shot!' I 
exclaimed, * Good God, how and where ? ' ' Through 
the lungs,' replied P., and as he spoke his right hand 
moved slowly up the breast, until the fingers rested 
over the right lung. ' What were you doing ? ' I 
asked. ' The General sent me forward,' he answered, 
and the right hand left the breast to move slowly to 
the front, pointing over my head to the window, and 
at the same moment the figure melted away. 

" I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not 
dreaming, and sprang out of bed. I felt sure my old 
friend was no more, and what I had seen was only 



HALLUCINATIONS 185 

an apparition. But yet how account for the voice ? 
— the ready and distinct answers ? That I had seen 
a spirit, certainly something that was not flesh and 
blood, and that I had conversed with it, were alike 
indisputable facts. But how to reconcile these 
apparent impossibilities ? The thought disquieted 
me, and I longed for the hour when the club would 
open, and I could get a chance of learning from the 
papers any news from the seat of war in the 
Transvaal. The hours passed feverishly. I was 
first at the club that morning, and snatched greedily 
at the first paper. No news of the war whatever. I 
passed the day in a more or less unquiet mood, and 
talked over the whole circumstance with an old 
brother officer, Colonel W. He was as fully 
impressed as I was with the story of the appearance. 
The following morning I was again a solitary 
member of the club, and seized with avidity the first 
paper that came to hand. This time my anxiety 
was painfully set at rest, for my eye fell at once on 
the brief lines that told of the battle of Lang's Neck, 
and on the list of killed, foremost among them all 
being poor J. P. I noted the time the battle had 
been fought, calculated it with the hour I saw the 
figure, and found that it almost coincided. From 
this simple fact I could only surmise that the figure 
had appeared to me in London almost at the very 
moment that the fatal bullet had done its work at the 
Transvaal. 

" Two questions now arose in my mind. First, as 
to proof that poor P. happened to wear that 
particular uniform at the time of his death, and 
whether he carried a beard — which I myself had 
never seen him wear. Second, whether he met his 
death in the manner indicated, viz., by a bullet 
through the right lung. The first facts I established 



1 86 HALLUCINATIONS 

beyond dispute about six months afterwards, through 
an officer who was at the battle of Lang's Neck and 
who had been invalided home. He confirmed every 
detail. The second fact was confirmed more than a 
year later, by a mutual friend, J. S., the war being 
over. On my asking J. S. if he had heard how poor 
P. was shot, he replied, ' Just here,' and his fingers 
travelled up his breast, exactly as the fingers of the 
figure had done, until they rested on the very spot 
over the right lung." 

The next case is of a different type : — 
From Madame de Gilibert, The Paddocks, 
Haywards Heath. June 1883. "In my early days 
I lived in a large house, belonging to my grandfather, 
(the Earl of Egremont), at Petworth, from which we 
removed at his death, (1837); from this date I 
conclude that I could not have been younger than 1 1 
or older than 12 when the following occurrence took 
place, between the beginning of the year 1836 and 
the winter of 1837. 

" I must describe that part of the house which we, 
the family, occupied on the ground floor. My grand- 
father's room was on the south side of a long passage, 
which communicated with the more public parts of 
the house. Opposite his door, on the north side of 
the passage, was a swinging red baize door, which 
led to a narrow corridor, having on one side two 
doors, one my mother's bedroom, and the other the 
door of my father's dressing-room ; on the other side 
was a small staircase, leading to two rooms occupied 
by Garland, a superior servant, who took care of my 
grandfather, who was very old. All the grandchildren 
were very fond of Garland, who spoilt us all. One 
afternoon I had gone up to her rooms, and not finding 
her, as she had not returned from the steward's room 
from dinner, I turned to go down stairs. I generally 



HALLUCINATIONS 187 

' slid ' down those stairs in a way peculiar to myself. 
Balancing myself upon my chest, and straightening 
myself into a nearly horizontal position, I used to let 
myself go down the incline with an impetus. I was 
in this position just about to launch myself, when I 
was aware of a figure, which came from the baize 
door : and which astonished me, and made me pause. 
It was a female figure, in soft clinging drapery, 
greyish whitish ; some sort of shawl or kerchief crossed 
over the bosom ; the features well cut, delicate, and 
of an aquiline type ; but what struck me the most was 
the head-dress or coif, which had lace lappets or 
strings which, passing under the chin, were tied in a 
bow on the top of the head. I was, as I said, 
astonished, but not frightened. So many people 
did go about the house that it never occurred to me 
to be anything supernatural. But when the figure 
glided past the two doors I have mentioned, a sort 
of revulsion took place in me. I let myself slide 
down the balustrade and rushed to stop her, and tell 
her that there was no way out. (There was a disused 
door, but it had been long blocked up). I could not 
have been five seconds behind the figure, but when I 
reached the blocked door, there was nothing. 

" I knew no one could pass, but I ran round to the 
children's nurseries, with which that door had com- 
municated, and began asking the nurses whether they 
had seen 'an old woman in a white dressing-gown 
and grey shawl and lace ribbons under her chin and 
tied on the top of her head,' adding ' and she had a 
nose like Mrs. Pullen,' (the head laundress, who was 
a sort of female Duke of Wellington). I only got 
laughed at and snubbed by the nurses, but when 
Garland came in, and I told her, she seemed vexed at 
first, and ended by scolding me, so I was 'shut up.' 
But nevertheless T knew that I could not account for 



188 HALLUCINATIONS 

it, and every detail of dress, feature, and gait is as 
vivid now as it was at the time. 

" Many years afterwards I was in Paris after my 
marriage, and I used to see a cousin of my mother's, 
who had married abroad, and I told her once what 
I have above narrated. Madame de Valmar at once 
said to me, ' My dear, you have described your great 
aunt,' (Lady Carnarvon, who died February 10, 1826) 
'to the minutest item of her dress and appearance.' 
' And,' continued Madame de Valmar, ' she came you 
say from the swing door which led to your grand- 
father's room. She came to fetch her brother. He 
died very soon after.' Of course I do not believe 
this explanation of the mysterious figure ; still the 
nurseries with which the disused door communicated 
had been Lady Carnarvon's apartments, and she had 
died there. 

C. de Gilibert." 

In answer to inquiries, Madame de Gilibert wrote: — 
" The only two portraits of Lady Carnarvon at Pet- 
worth represent her very young." 

Though, taken at their face value, the phantasms 
in the cases given above appear to have some kind 
of objective reality, yet it must be borne in mind that 
phantasms purely subjective are not uncommonly 
supposed when seen to be objective. The following 
hallucination appears to have been telepathic. 

The percipient, Mr. S wrote to Dr. Bramwell : — 
' Dear Dr. Bramwell, As promised I now send you an 
account of my little thought transference experience. 
' Twas thus. I sat opposite my eldest daughter, who 
was reading a book by the fireside. Presently I 
exclaimed, " Good gracious ! " My daughter saying, 
" What is it ? " I replied, " I could have sworn I saw 
a dog enter the room." I described the dog minutely. 



HALLUCINATIONS 189 

My daughter in great surprise told me that she had 
that moment read a description of just such a dog. 
I do not even now know the title of the book. We 
kept no dog at that time, nor had we conversed about 
one.' 

In reply to inquiries Mr. S. wrote : — ' Dear Sir, In 
reply to yours of 14th Inst., the incident re thought- 
transference 'twixt my daughter and myself took 
place on a Sunday about a year ago. My daughter 
would be willing to give an account of the matter. 
She does not remember my giving a detailed descrip- 
tion of the dog, but simply that I exclaimed, " I just 
saw such a big dog rush into the room." My 
daughter tells me that immediately before my ex- 
clamation she had read the following words from a 
book, (" Lewis Arundel ") " As he spoke, he uttered 
a low peculiar whistle ; in obedience to his signal a 
magnificent Livonian wolf-hound, etc, etc, sprang 
into the room." It is not a common experience of 
mine to imagine I see anything which is not tangibly 
present, and I am very sceptical about other folks' 
report re such things.' 

Miss Goodrich Freer records a visual hallucination 
of an unusual character. " I was visiting for the first 
time at the house of a friend who had recently 
married. Her husband I had never met, but all 
that I had ever heard had led me to expect to find 
him an agreeable gentleman of good birth, fortune, 
and position. We were introduced, and I soon per- 
ceived that he had at least the wish to please, and to 
show hospitality to all the guests assembled. How- 
ever, from the first moment that I had opportunity 
to observe him at all carefully, I was troubled by a 
curious and perplexing hallucination. No matter 
where he happened to be — the dinner table, in the 
conservatory, at the piano — for me the real back- 



190 HALLUCINATIONS 

ground disappeared and a visionary scene succeeded. 
I saw the same man in his boyhood — he was in reality 
very youthful in appearance — gazing towards me 
with an expression of abject terror, his head bowed, 
his shoulders raised as if to defend himself from 
actual blows. I discovered afterwards that this scene 
was one which had actually taken place at a famous 
public school, when, in consequence of a disgraceful 
act of fraud, he was ignominiously expelled, and had 
to ' run the gauntlet ' of his school-fellows." 

The following — abridged — account of a hallucina- 
tion, (reported in full in S. P. R. Journal), is of some 
interest. I have substituted pseudonyms for the real 
names of the persons concerned. 

"On August 4th, 1913, I had been invited by a 
friend, Miss B., living in the neighbouring town, some 
three miles off, to meet Mr. T. V. Key. On the 
afternoon of that day, therefore, I rode over to her 
house, leaving my wife, who was not well enough to 
accompany me, resting by herself. 

At tea-time we talked, I think, entirely upon 
psychical matters, and I remember asking Mr. Key if 
he saw ' auras ' round people, and, if so, what he saw 
round me. At first he saw nothing, but later he said : 
'You asked me to tell you, I do now see something.' 
He saw two things behind me, (I now refer to my 
notes made the same evening on my return). ' One 
a dark — half-human creature, with knotted hands 
placed upon my shoulders.' This he said was 
symbolical of illness near at hand — a warning.' 

Then appeared the faint slight figure of a young 
woman with oval face, etc,' (here follow some details 
which very well apply to my wife's appearance). 
She ' tried to avert the illness.' 

When I came home towards six o'clock my wife 
told me she had been very anxious about my being 



HALLUCINATIONS 191 

out in the cold wind ; also — and this is the important 
part of the case — she had been quite obsessed by a 
somewhat grotesque story of a man dressed up as a 
gorilla who comes up behind the master of the house 
and strangles him with his hands. 

P.C. Laurence." 

Mrs. Laurence and Miss B. write, confirming Mr. 
Laurence's statement. No illness followed, and the 
hallucination counts as evidence for telepathy, and 
not for mystical or symbolic premonition. 

In considering the phenomena of visual hallucin- 
ations it must always be borne in mind that when we 
speak of the sense of sight, we mean that a certain 
number of things external to us are reflected in the 
retina of the eye, which in some way is in com- 
munication with the brain, and through that with the 
mind. We do not know how many things we may 
be surrounded by, which the eye is incapable of 
reflecting ; but we know we cannot see the ether, and 
that certain colours exist which cannot be seen by 
human beings, though insects appear to be conscious 
of them. 

Similarly, the human ear is capable of receiving 
and conveying to the brain and mind only certain 
sounds in certain keys : some ears are incapable of 
hearing the high-pitched squeak of the bat. It is 
possible, and even probable that we are in the midst 
of waves of sound, ethereal or otherwise, which our 
ears cannot catch. It is not unusual for an invalid 
to suffer from abnormal powers of audition. For 
some months, when dangerously ill, I myself could 
hear, as loud noises which seemed to hit my ears, 
sounds made several storeys below where I lay, which 
ordinarily I could not hear at all. This abnormal 
hearing is not caused by any alteration in the mech- 



192 HALLUCINATIONS 

anism of the ear itself, but apparently by some 
morbid state of the nerves, produced by weakness, 
the nerves acting on the brain and through the brain 
on the ear. 

Though these physiological facts do not throw 
much light on the phenomena of oral or visual 
hallucinations, they cause one to ponder vaguely 
whether these can be caused by an abnormal ex- 
tension of the senses of sight and hearing, which 
enables ethereal bodies or sounds to become apparent 
for a brief space. Or whether, on the other hand, 
hallucinations are caused by impressions received 
immediately by the mind, and then through the 
brain conveyed to the ear or eye ; thus exactly 
reversing the normal process. 

The following instance of an oral hallucination is 
taken from the S.P.R. Journal, but it is also to be 
found in Human Personality : it was sent by the 
Right Hon. Sir John Drummond Hay K.C.B., G.M. 
C.G., who was for many years H.M.'s Minister in 
Morocco, and resided at Tangier. 

'September 16th, 1889. In the year 1879 my son 
Robert Drummond Hay resided at Mogador with 
his family, where he was at that time Consul. It 
was in the month of February. I had lately received 
good accounts of my son and his family. I was also 
in perfect health. About 1 a.m. (I forget the exact 
day in February), whilst sleeping soundly at Tangier, 
I was woke by hearing distinctly the voice of my 
daughter-in-law, who was with her husband at 
Mogodor, saying in a clear but distressed tone of 
voice, " Oh, I wish papa only knew that Robert is 
ill." There was a night lamp in the room. I sat up 
and listened, looking round the room ; but there was 
no one except my wife, sleeping quietly in bed. I 
jstened for some seconds, expecting to hear footsteps 



HALLUCINATIONS 193 

outside, but complete silence prevailed, so I lay down 
again, thanking God that the voice which woke me 
was an hallucination. I had hardly closed my eyes 
when I heard the same voice and words, upon which 
I woke Lady Drummond Hay and told her what had 
occurred, and I got up and went into my study 
adjoining the bedroom, and noted it in my diary. 
Next morning I related what had happened to my 
daughter, saying that though I did not believe in 
dreams, I felt anxious for tidings from Mogador. 
That port, as you will see in the map, is about 300 
miles south of Tangier. A few days after this in- 
cident, a letter arrived from my daughter-in-law, 
Mrs. R. Drummond Hay, telling us that my son was 
seriously ill with typhoid fever and mentioning the 
night during which he had been delirious. Much 
struck by the coincidence that it was the same night 
I had heard her voice, I wrote to tell her what had 
happened. She replied the following post, that in 
her distress at seeing her husband so dangerously ill, 
and from being alone in a distant land, she had 
made use of the precise words which had startled me 
from sleep, and had repeated them. As it may be of 
interest to you to receive a corroboration of what I 
have related, from the persons I have mentioned 
who happen to be with me at this date, they alsC 
sign, to affirm the accuracy of what I have related. 

'When I resigned in 1886, 1 destroyed, unfortunately, 
a number of my diaries, and amongst them that of 
1879, or I should have been able to state the day, 
and might have sent you the leaf, on which I noted 
the incident. 

' At my request my daughter-in-law has written an 

account of what she saw when living at Tangier in 

1870. I remember well her telling me that she had 

seen the Moorish hunter who had been accidentally 

N 



194 HALLUCINATIONS 

shot, and of our hearing the following day that it was 
at the same hour she had seen him when he was 
actually killed out hunting in a wood many miles 
distant from my summer residence where she was 
living. 

J. H. Drummond Hay. 

Annette Drummond Hay. 

Euphemia Drummond Hay. 

Alice Drummond Hay." 

This is a well attested instance of a type of case 
by no means uncommon ; I give next an oral 
hallucination of a rarer type, reported in S.P.R. 
Proceedings \ Vol. VI. 

The Rev. J.L.B., Minister of S., a small hamlet in 
the south of Scotland, wrote: — "July 23, 1889. It 
affords me much pleasure in answer to your letter of 
the 20th, which I only received to-day, to give you 
an account of my experience in connection with the 
music in D. woods, which ' does not seem due to any 
ordinary source.' I have heard it I think, four times, 
and always at the same place, viz., on the public 
road, which runs along the south bank of the Tweed, 
and which passes, at the distance of three-quarters 
of a mile, the old churchyard of D. The churchyard, 
from which the music always seems to come, is south 
of the road, and at a much higher elevation, and the 
intervening ground is densely covered with wood. 
The first two or three times I heard the sound, it was 
very faint, but sufficiently distinct to enable me to 
follow the swellings and cadences. I do not know 
why, but on these occasions I never for a moment 
thought it was real music. Neither did I think it 
anything very unusual, though the tones seemed 
more ethereal than any I had ever heard before. I 
am exceedingly fond of music, and, in my walks, 



HALLUCINATIONS 195 

frequently sing without sound (if I may use such an 
expression) tunes, pieces, and 'songs without words.' 
As there was on every occasion a breeze swaying the 
branches, I thought that, in my imagination, produced 
the result, though it did seem strange I never heard 
anything similar in other woods. 

" Years passed, and I had forgotten all about the 
matter, when I heard it again, and I will not soon 
forget the last performance. Last year I was 
walking up to X., to drive with Mr. and Mrs. M. to 
a tennis match. When I reached the usual spot, 
there burst upon my ear, from the direction of the 
churchyard, what seemed to be the splendid roll of a 
full brass and reed band. It did not recall the former 
occasions, and I never for a moment doubted its 
reality. My first thought was that Sir Y.Z. had lent 
his park for a Sunday School treat ; and my second 
was that the band was far too good, and the music 
of far too high a class for such a purpose. I walked 
on, enjoying it thoroughly, never dreaming that I was 
not listening to good ordinary music, till it suddenly 
struck me that the sound, though now faint, ought to 
have been inaudible, as there was now between me 
and the churchyard the big broad shoulder of S. (a 
hill). I began to remember the other— infinitely less 
distinct— performances I had heard, and though not 
superstitious enough to believe that there was any- 
thing which could not be explained on natural 
grounds, I felt that the explanation was beyond my 
power of discovery or conjecture. Of course I in 
tended immediately telling my friends at X., but my 
attention must have been called to something else, 
as I did not do so. We drove away, and after some 
time we all, except Mrs. M., got out to walk up a steep 
hill. Walking at the side of the carriage I told the 
most minute circumstances of my strange experience. 



196 HALLUCINATIONS 

Mrs. M. seemed to take it very seriously, but Mr. 
E. ridiculed the whole affair as a freak of the 
imagination. 

" I tell you these little incidental circumstances to 
show you how indelibly the events of the day 
are graven upon my memory. I had not at that 
time heard that the sounds had been listened to by 
any other person, but it is now well known that they 
have often been heard by Sir Y. Z., and once by 
Lady Z. In the last case the music resembled that 
of a choir, unaccompanied by instruments. In my 
case there was nothing resembling vocal music." 

(Signed in full) J. L. B. 

In answer to questions Mr. B. wrote on July 30, 
1889. "I have never had any other hallucinations, 
so far as I know. I consider it absolutely impossible 
that there could have been a real band at the place. 
It could not have been there without the permission 
of Sir Y. Z. or of his manager. They were both at 
home at the time. The ' cemetery ' is the churchyard 
of the suppressed parish of D. which was divided 
equally between S. and X. The church became 
ruinous, and was converted into a burial vault for the 
Z. family." 

Lady Z. wrote: — "On the hot, still afternoon of 
July 1 2th, 1888, I was sitting resting with some old 
ladies at our pretty little cemetery chapel, within the 
grounds of our house in Scotland, far away from all 
thoroughfare or roads. Whilst I was talking I stopped 
suddenly, exclaiming, ' Listen ! what is that singing? ' 
It was the most beautiful singing I had ever heard, 
just a wave of cathedral chanting, a great many 
voices, which only lasted a few seconds. The lady 
said she heard nothing, and thinking she might be 
deaf I said nothing. I quite thought it might be 



HALLUCINATIONS 197 

haymakers at work, and yet I turned my head round, 
for the singing was so close by. It dawned on me, 
' the Scotch need not say they cannot sing.' There 
were several others sitting with us, but they heard 
nothing, (which astonished me). I said nothing 
more till the evening, when I casually said to my 
husband, ' What was that singing where we were 
sitting this afternoon ? ' thinking he would reply, ' Oh, 
it was the men at work,' but, to my astonishment, he 
replied, ' I have often heard that before, and it is 
chanting I hear.' (Mark I had not said I had heard 
several voices, only singing, which was very remark- 
able). And then, and not till then, I saw that the 
voices could not have been human, and certainly I 
had not imagined it. I had never heard such heavenly 
(that is the only adjective I can use) music before, 
and would not have missed it for anything. I was in 
no wise in a sentimental or fanciful state of mind 
when I heard the music, but only talking of the 
common subjects of the day. This is my written 
statement, and absolutely true. 

Signed by me (in full) A. Z." 

From Sir Y. Z. ' When alone at the cemetery I 
have occasionally heard, from within the chapel, 
sounds as of chanting. 

(Signed) Y. Z.' 

A somewhat similar experience is recorded in a 
recent issue of the S.P.R. Journal, where the names 
are given in full. 

"I visited the ruined Abbey of Jumieges on the 
first Sunday of July, 191 3, (July 6). I was 
accompanied by my father, mother, and youngest 
brother. We arrived at the ruin about 3 p.m. and 
we proceeded at once to inspect the imposing-looking 



198 HALLUCINATIONS 

ruin of the monastic church, called ' l'Eglise Notre 
Dame.' It is the largest and most impressive ex- 
ample of Norman ecclesiastical architecture I have 
ever seen. It was built cruciform, and the ' right- 
hand ' arm of the cross joined on to another much 
smaller church, which was used as the parish church 
and goes by the name of ' l'Eglise St. Pierre.' The 
walls of this latter church stand more or less intact, 
but only the nave of the monastic church remains, 
and a small number of scattered stones mark the 
place where the choir was once. Trees and shrubs 
cover the spot where the presbytery once stood. 

" After we had spent some time in the Notre Dame 
ruin, we walked on into the Church of ' St. Pierre.' 

" We had been there about ten minutes admiring 
this exquisite fourteenth century Gothic ruin, and I 
then wandered away a short distance from my 
companions ; I suddenly became aware of the sound 
of a large number of men's voices which seemed to 
come from the open space on our left where the few 
scattered stones marked the site of where the monastic 
choir had been. The singing was very soft ; the air 
was quite familiar ; I remember saying to myself 
twice : ' I am imagining this ! I am imagining 
this ! ' and then the music ' left ' my attention as I 
heard my father exclaim : ' Why, there are the monks 
singing ! ' I heard no more singing after that, so I 
really only heard it for a few seconds. I was so 
struck with the strangeness of the thing that I 
determined to pretend I had heard nothing, until I 
learnt from my companions if their experience had 
been the same as my own. I found this was the 
case, and we agreed that the voices were chanting 
' Vespers ' — that is to say, they were chanting a 
psalm in Latin. We tried to think of possible 
' natural ' explanations, but the present parish church 



HALLUCINATIONS 199 

was a kilometre and a half from there — so the care- 
taker told us — besides which, if the sound had come 
from there, we should have heard it longer than a 
few seconds. It was a very fine day, and I do not 
remember that there was any wind. We spent about 
half an hour longer near the ruins without hearing 
anything else in such an extraordinary way." 

The father, mother, and brother, also wrote 
statements, fully corroborating the above account. 
One of them said, ' The sounds were just those of 
a choir singing under a vast vaulted roof." 



CHAPTER IX 

HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

In a paper on Phantasms of the Dead (Proceedings 
VI), Mr. Myers wrote : — " Meteorites — those other 
invaders from the unseen — were until lately quite as 
scornfully rejected, and naturally rejected, so long as 
the evidence for phenomena so marvellous rested on 
antique tradition, and peasants' tales. Then came a 
moment — like the moment which our inquiry is 
traversing now — at which inquiring men who had 
actually spoken with the peasants, and seen the 
fragments, believed that stones had fallen. And 
then suddenly the fall of meteorites was accepted as 
a natural phenomenon, an almost inexplicable, but a 
quite undeniable fact. In recent papers I have 
endeavoured to exhibit — so to say — some specimens 
of meteoric dust. In the present paper I must try to 
show the hollowness of the negative assumption, 
which for this inquiry corresponds to Lavoisier's 
famous dictum, ' There are no stones in the air, 
therefore none can fall upon the earth.' " 

Mr. Myers wrote the above in 1889, since that date 
many cases of haunted houses and haunted localities 
have been collected by S.P.R. and may be found in 
the Proceedings ; of these I have selected three which 
for various reasons appear to me most suitable for 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 201 

insertion in this chapter. The first relates to a 
haunted road ; the second to a haunted house ; these 
two are both of what I maf term the ordinary type. 
The third is of a quite extraordinary type, no other 
case of all those recorded by S.P.R. being at all 
similar. 

In May, 1892, Miss M. W. Scott, of Lessudden 
House, St. Boswell's, Roxburghshire, when walking 
down a short incline on her way home, saw a tall 
man dressed in black a few yards in front of her. 
He turned a corner of the road, being still in view of 
her and there suddenly disappeared. On following him 
round the corner, Miss Scott found a sister of hers, 
also on her way home, who had just seen a tall man 
dressed in black, whom she took for a clergyman, 
coming to meet her on the road. She looked away 
for a moment, and on looking towards him again, 
could see no one anywhere near. Miss Scott on 
overtaking her, found her looking up and down the 
road, and into the fields, in much bewilderment. 
It appeared that they had not seen the man at 
exactly the same moment, nor in exactly the same 
place, but from their description of the surroundings 
it seems impossible that it could have been a real 
person, who had contrived to get away unnoticed. 

In July of the same year, at about the same place, 
Miss Scott walking with another of her sisters saw 
approaching them a tall figure dressed in black, with 
a long coat, gaiters and knee-breeches, a wide white 
cravat and low-crowned hat ; the sister also saw the 
upper part of the figure, which seemed to fade away 
into the bank by the side of the road as they looked 
at it. Again in June, 1893, walking alone on the 
road in the morning. Miss Scott saw a dark figure 
some way in front, which she recognised as the 
apparition when she got nearer to it. She made a 



202 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

determined effort to overtake it, but could not get 
nearer than a few yards, as it then seemed to float or 
skim away. At length, however, it stopped, turned 
round and faced her ; then moved on a few steps, 
and turned and looked back again, finally fading 
from her view by a hedge. She was able to notice 
fully the details of the dress — knee-breeches, black 
silk stockings, and shoe buckles — like the dress of 
Scottish clergymen about a century ago. The 
apparition was also said to have been seen at different 
times, by some children, and other persons, in the 
neighbourhood ; but of this no first-hand accounts 
were forthcoming. There was also a legend that a 
child had been murdered close by. 

The next occurrence is described in the following 
letter, written by Miss Louisa Scott, the sister who 
shared Miss M. W. Scott's first experience : — 
" August 14, 1894. Dear Miss Guthrie, as I know 
you are interested in the movements of our ghost, 
I am writing to tell you another little anecdote about 
him. A young lady, who is governess in this neigh- 
bourhood, told me this afternoon of a meeting she had 
had with him this spring. She was returning home 
along the haunted road at about a quarter past four in 
the afternoon, when she was attracted by seeing in front 
of her a rather tall old man, dressed in a long black 
cloak, with one cape which came to a little below his 
shoulders ; his hat, as on the occasions when my 
sisters and I saw him, was low-crowned, and the 
brim slouched over his eyes. My informant was 
much interested in this peculiar looking person, and 
did not take her eyes off him, whilst she watched 
him walk backward and forward between the turn of 
the road and a heap of stones about a hundred yards 
lower down ; he repeated this six times, the last 
time stopping as if he were speaking to a man who 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 203 

was cutting the hedge at the time. What struck 
Miss Irvine as peculiar was that the man who was 
hedge-cutting did not look round, and seemed quite 
unconscious of the other's presence. Miss Irvine 
walked on, and was going to pass the old man, when, 
to her astonishment, he vanished when she was only 
about three yards from him. 

" I know that you will think it foolish of Miss Irvine 
not questioning the hedger, to whom the apparition 
looked as if he were speaking. I asked her why she 
had not, and she answered that she had not liked 
doing so, as the labourer would undoubtedly have 
thought her mad, as he clearly did not see anyone. 
I am sure you will think this story most interesting, 
knowing all our experiences in days gone by. The 
extraordinary part of this man is that he always 
frequents the same part of the road, and yet does 
not vanish twice on the same spot ; when my sister 
and I saw him, he became invisible on the left side of 
the road ; and when Miss Irvine saw him he vanished 
on the right. 

" I do wish we could see ' our man ' again. I have 
passed along that road hundreds of times since he 
was first seen, and at all hours of the day. I think 
he cannot have liked the way I stared at him the 
last time. Another thing we think funny is the 
variety of coats which he seems to possess, and all 
of an antique cut. He has the long black cloak with 
the cape in which Miss Irvine saw him ; and the 
clerical looking cloak with the large deep pockets in 
which we met him ; then on the other occasion when 
the village girls met him, he had round him the 
filmy looking sheet. 

" My sister had written to Sir George Douglas to 
ask him if he can tell her the exact spot on this road 
where an old man was murdered by gypsies coming 



204 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

from St. Bos well's fair many years ago. Sir George 
Douglas tells this story among a number of other old 
border tales, which no doubt you have read. I hope 
some day to be able to tell you more about the ghost. 
At present I am afraid he is underground. With 
kind regards, yours sincerely, 

Louisa Scott." 

Miss Irvine also wrote confirming the above 
account. 

In August, 1898, Miss M. W. Scott wrote to Mr. 
Myers as follows : — " Our apparition is still seen. . . 
My latest experience was about a fortnight ago, 
when coming down the haunted road in the dusk I 
distinctly heard footsteps walking beside me, but 
could see nothing. . . Last autumn, and again in the 
dusk, I was walking down the little wood adjacent 
to the road with my sister. We were both talking 
upon indifferent subjects, and putting the ghost as 
far from our thoughts as possible, when suddenly I 
was carried spell-bound by distinctly seeing the 
apparition walking alongside of us on the other side of 
the hedge. My sister saw me gazing vacantly on 
space when I suddenly exclaimed ' The man ! ' 
When we came to the gate which divides the wood 
from the road, there was no one to be seen either 
way, though ' he ' had walked within three feet of me 
the whole time ; he was invisible to my sister. It is 
a strange phenomenon altogether. He had the same 
countenance we have always seen, but I did not seem 
to have the power to look beyond his face. This 
ghost always appears when our thoughts are bound 
up in something else, but if the opposite, then we are 
sure not to see him, and many persons who have 
accompanied us up and down the road in hopes of 
seeing him, have, like ourselves, failed to do so." 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 205 

On August i/, 1900, Miss Scott wrote to say that 
she had recently seen the apparition twice, the most 
recent occasion having been ' only last night.' On 
the first of these occasions, July 24, 1900, Miss Scott 
was talking to a friend " exactly upon the part known 
as the property of that ' mysterious he ' ; I had 
forgotten the very existence of our supernatural 
neighbour when I perceived the tall black figure 
walking on in advance with his back towards us, 
about twenty yards away." 

On August 16, 1900, when he appeared, "there was 
a man with a pony and trap, cutting grass by the 
roadside within a few feet of where I saw the 
apparition appear — yet the most wonderful part of it 
all was that when I questioned the man, he declared 
he had seen no one. ' But,' I said, ' he was close 
beside you.' He still declared he saw no person 
there, so I let the matter end, though I expect that 
he, like the whole village, knows well the reputation 
of the road, for he looked slightly nervous, and 
remarked ' it was not a safe place to come down 
alone.' " Miss Scott on further inquiry staled that 
the pony "was really nearest the apparition, whose 
back was close to its head as he advanced. It may 
only have been a coincidence, but the pony gave 
itself a violent shake in its harness just at the time." 

M. W. Scott. 

The case of the haunted house, to be dealt with 
next, is fairly typical, but the evidence for super- 
normal occurrences is exceptionally strong. 

The first account comes from Miss L. Morris, who 
wrote in June, 1888, describing her experiences 
during the time she inhabited the house, from 
October 1882 until December 1886. These experi- 
ences included heavy footsteps tramping round the 



206 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

table in the drawing-room at which she was sitting. 
Footsteps heard elsewhere by a sister as well as 
herself collectively. Footsteps heard night after 
night until she became used to them. The door bell 
was constantly rung by invisible hands ; and this 
happened even when it was open and under obser- 
vation. Also knocks were heard at it when no one 
was outside. Doors in the house were opened, and 
left open ; — a fact to be noted, as ghosts usually shut 
doors behind them. Twice Miss Morris saw a 
phantasm, ' a woman heavily robed in deepest black 
from her head to her feet; her face intensely sad, 
and deadly pale.' 

Miss E. M. Morris confirmed her sister's account of 
the bell-ringing, and the opening of doors ; and also 
stated that they had the boards taken up to trace the 
cause, if possible, of the bell-ringing, but could dis- 
cover nothing. 

"From December 1886 until November of the 
following year the house remained empty. It was 
then taken by Mrs. G., a widow lady with two 
children, girls of about nine and ten respectively, and 
one maid-servant. Mrs. G. had only come to X. 
about six months before taking the house, and was 
entirely ignorant that anything unusual had happened 
there. The account which follows, written at Mr. 
Gurney's request, in June, 1888, was compiled with 
the help of a diary, in which she had jotted down 
from day to day brief notices of any unusual 
occurrence." (This diary was inspected by Mr. 
Podmore.) " The names of the children in this 
account are fictitious." 

Mrs. G. wrote : — " We had not been more that a 
fortnight in our new home (it was in December) 
when I was aroused by a deep sob and moan. ' Oh,' 
I thought, ' what has happened to the children ? ' I 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 207 

rushed in, their room being at the back of mine ; 
found them sleeping soundly. So back to bed I 
went, when again another sob, and such a thump of 
somebody or something very heavy. ' What can be 
the matter ? ' I sat up in bed, looked all round the 
room, then to my horror a voice (and a very sweet 
one) said, ' Oh, do forgive me ! ' three times. I could 
stand it no more ; I always kept the gas burning, 
turned it up, and went to the maid's room. She was 
fast asleep, so I shook her well, and asked her to 
come into my room. Then in five minutes the sobs 
and moans recommenced, and the heavy tramping of 
feet, and such thumps, like heavy boxes of plate 
being thrown about. She suggested I should ring 
the big bell I always keep in my room, but I did not 
like to alarm the neighbourhood. 'Oh, do, ma'am, I 
am sure there are burglars next door, and they will 
come to us next.' Anything but pleasant, on a 
bitter cold night, standing bell in hand awaiting a 
burglar. Well, I told her to go to bed, and hearing 
nothing for half an hour, I got into mine, nearly 
frozen with cold and fright. But no sooner had I 
got warm than the sobs, moans, and noises com- 
menced again. Three times I called Anne in, and 
then in the morning it all died away in a low moan. 

" Of course nothing was said to the children, and I 
was hoping I should never experience such a thing 
again. I was in the drawing room deeply thinking 
about business matters, when I was startled by Edith 
giving such a scream. I ran to the door, and found 
her running up, followed by Florence and the 
servant. ' Oh. Birdie dear, I have seen such a 
dreadful white face peeping round the door ! I only 
saw the head. I was playing with Floss (dog), and 
looking up, I saw this dreadful thing, Florence and 
Anne rushed in at once, but saw nothing.' I pacified 



208 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

them by saying someone was playing a trick. But 
after that for months they would not go upstairs or 
down alone. It was very tiresome, and thinking 
seriously over the matter, I resolved to return my 
neighbour's call. I was ushered into the presence of 
two portly dames, and I should think they had 
arrived at that age not given to pranks. I looked 
at them, and mentally thought, • That sweet voice 
does not belong to either of you.' They informed me 
they had lived in that house 18 years, so I thought I 
might venture to ask whether anything had ever 
taken place of a disagreeable nature in my house, as 
we were so constantly alarmed by heavy noises. I 
feared nothing and no one, but if my children were 
frightened I should leave, but I liked the house very 
much, and thought perhaps I might buy it. They 
said, ' Don't do that, but there is nothing to hurt 
you,' and I saw sundry nods and winks which meant 
more, so in desperation I said, ' Won't you tell me 
what has occurred ? ' ' Well, a few years ago, the 
bells began to ring, and there was quite a commotion, 
but then the former tenant, a Miss M., had a wicked 
servant.' The other dame replied, ' I may say, a 
very wicked servant.' Well, I could not get much 
more, but of course I imagined this very wicked 
servant had done something, and felt very uneasy. 

" We had a dreadful night, December 29th, such 
heavy thumps outside the bedrooms ; and I went to 
Mr. W., the agent, intending to tell him we must 
leave, or we should be bereft of our senses, but I was 
too late, the office was shut, so I went to friends and 
asked them to come and sleep, as I really was too 
unnerved to remain alone on New Year's Eve. They 
kindly came. Mrs. L. said she heard knocks. They 
returned home the next morning, having a young 
family to look after. I then wrote to a sister-in-law 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 209 

I was fond of, and she came for a week, but every- 
thing was quiet. January 18th, I heard three loud 
knocks at my bedroom door. I was too terrified to 
speak for a minute, and then called out, ' Who's 
there ? What do you want ? " My terror was 
intense, for I thought, supposing it is a burglar. It 
was a great relief to hear the children call out : 
'Birdie, who is knocking at your door?' 'I wish I 
could tell you.' A fortnight previously I asked a 
policeman on duty if he would see if anyone was in 
the empty house. He came to tell me it was securely 
fastened, and no one could get in. Then I suggested 
coiners under the houses, but he said they only go to 
old castles. ' Well then, what is it ? ' He said a sad 
occurrence had taken place some years ago. I said, 
' Oh, dreadful ! ' but he was matter-of-fact was 
Policeman X., and replied, ' It is an every-day thing, 
and no doubt most of the houses people lived in, 
something has happened in.' ' But,' I said, ' this is 
such a very strange house, and we have no rest either 
by day or night, and why should this dreadful white 
face appear to my child ? ' Well, he didn't believe 
in ghosts. 'Very well,' I said, 'will you kindly catch 
whoever is frightening us, and let them be well 
punished ? ' ' But madam, I can't catch nothing ! ' 
' Right, Policeman X., I knew that was impossible, 
but what am I to do ? ' So he suggested detectives, 
but that wouldn't do. I found that house very 
expensive, I had to keep the gas burning downstairs 
and up all night. I asked a young friend to stay, a 
clergyman's daughter. She laughed at such a thing 
as a ghost. We both went up the trap door and 
explored the space over the bedroom, and next to the 
roof; it was very dark, but I took a candle, and then 
discovered three holes as large as a plate between my 
house and the old ladies'. Next morning I walked 
O 



210 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

down to the landlord who owns both houses, and 
told him again what we were continually going 
through, and that I and my children were getting ill, 
and that it was quite impossible to live in the house. 
He came up the following day, and told me that a 
woman had hanged herself, he thought, in the 
room the children slept in. The holes were filled 
up, and I thought ' now nothing can come in to alarm 
us.' 

" Florence was saying to her elder sister, ' You see 
it was your imagination, for I never see anything.' 
' Wait till you do, you won't forget ! ' The next 
morning as Florence was passing the room on the 
stairs, she saw a man standing by the window, staring 
fixedly ; blue eyes, dark brown hair, and freckles. 
She rushed up to me, looking very white and 
frightened ; the house was searched at once, and 
nothing seen. 

" I had forgotten to say that the night after the 
knocks came to my bedroom, I resolved that the 
dog, who is very sharp, should sleep outside, but oh, 
that was worse than all, for at a quarter past twelve 
I looked at my clock. He commenced to cry — it 
was not exactly howling — and tore at the carpet in 
a frantic manner. I threw the door wide open, and 
demanded what was the matter. The poor little 
animal was so delighted to see me. I saw he had 
biscuits and water, and the children were then awake, 
and asked me why Floss was making that noise. I 
went to bed, and in ten minutes he recommenced ; 
I went out three times. Another night something 
seemed to walk to the children's door, and turn the 
handle, walk up to the washstand, shake the bed, and 
walk out. The children frequently saw lights in their 
bedroom, generally white, and Florence one night 
saw a white skirt hanging from the ceiling. She was 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 211 

so frightened that she put her head under the clothes, 
and would not look again. 

" Then my solicitor and his wife came down for a 
night. Mrs. C. could not go to sleep until four, as 
she heard such a heavy fall outside her bedroom door. 
One Sunday I was reading by the fire in the drawing- 
room, and thinking it was very cosy, when I heard a 
cry, and thinking it one of the children ill, was going 
upstairs. Edith called out, ' Birdie, come quickly ; 
something has opened and shut our door three times, 
and someone is crying.' I went up, and we all heard 
someone sobbing, but where it came from we could 
not tell, but seemed near the wall. 

" One day, when I was out, the children were playing 
with Anne in the room downstairs ; they all distinctly 
heard a very heavy footfall walk across the drawing- 
room, play two notes on the piano, and walk out. I 
came in shortly after, astonished to see them, candle 
in hand, looking under the beds. I was writing in 
the drawing-room, when the front door bell rang 
violently. I asked who it was, ' No one, ma'am.' I 
thought I would stand by the window, and presently 
it rang again ; down the servant came, no one there, 
and after the third time I told her not to go to the 
door unless she heard a knock as well. I knew no 
one had pulled the bell, because I was standing by 
the window. I then had an interview with Miss M." 
(A summary of Miss Morris's previous experiences 
has already been given). 

Mrs. G. continues : — " Well, then friends suggested 
I should have the floors up, the chimneys taken out 
to see if there was any communication with the other 
house, and the door taken away and a new one put 
on. One friend offered to lend me a mastiff which 
flew at everything ; another offered me his savage 
bull-dog, which was always chained up when I called 



212 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

there ; and then last but not least, I was to have two 
detectives. ' Well,' I thought, ' it is time to move, in 
this bitter weather to have no floors, no grates, no 
door, a ferocious mastiff, and still worse a bull-dog 
and two detectives, a pretty state of affairs for 
anyone ! " I asked my landlord to release me, but 
he would not unless I paid my rent up to Christmas." 

Mrs. G. took her children away for a time to stay 
with friends in London, leaving her servant and the 
servant's father in charge of her house. After a few 
weeks absence she received a letter from her servant 
to say that they could not remain in the house any 
longer, in consequences of the disturbances therein. 
Mrs. G. then decided to leave it ; but returned there 
with a friend temporarily. The friend heard ' thumps 
and bumps, and a hissing sound round the top of the 
bed.' 

Mr. Gurney wrote, " I had a long talk with Mrs. 
G. on June 13th, 1888. She went over the whole 
history of her, and her children's experiences in the 
house. She struck me as an excellent witness. I 
have never received an account in which the words 
and manner of telling were less suggestive of 
exaggeration or superstition. There is no doubt 
that she was simply turned out of a house which 
otherwise exactly suited her, at very serious expense 
and inconvenience." 

Mr. Podmore interviewed Anne H., Mrs. G's 
servant, and wrote on July 9th, 1888: — "I talked 
to Anne H., a clever, intelligent girl, to-day. She 
gave me a graphic description of the shadow moving 
across the window and wall of her bedroom." The 
above refers to an item in a lengthy written testimony 
of Anne H. 

A newspaper of April 5th, 1879 contains the 
following account of a suicide which took place in 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 213 

the house:— "SINGULAR CASE OF SUICIDE 

The Coroner held an inquest on Saturday at the 

Inn, on the body of Mrs. M. F., aged 42 years, who 
committed suicide by hanging herself on the previous 

day. Deceased, a lodging housekeeper in road, 

had more than once threatened to destroy herself, but 
no importance was attached to what she said. On 
Friday, however, she sent a letter to a friend saying 
that she would never be seen alive again in this 
world ; but this, like her previous assertions, was 
regarded as an empty threat, and it was not until 

Mr. B lodging at her house missed her, and 

mentioned the fact to a relative, that any notice was 
taken of the letter. The house was then searched, 
and deceased was discovered hanging by a skipping- 
rope to a peg behind the door of the top back 
bedroom, quite dead. The jury returned a verdict, 
' Suicide whilst in a state of unsound mind." (Date 
of suicide, March 28th, 1879). 

The house was subsequently occupied by an 
Associate of the Society for Psychical Research, 
and his wife, for a period of nearly thirteen and a 
half months; they went to it on August 17, 1888 ; 
about two months after Mrs. G. had left it. This 
gentleman states : — " Although my wife and I had 
no visual experiences in the house, we were certainly 
confronted with a few odd noises — of a sort which 
would undoubtedly have arrested attention in any 
house, no matter whether it had a ghostly reputation 
or not. I carefully made a note of every unusual 
event immediately after its recurrence ; and as the 
number of them is not great, I give the complete 
list, taken from my diary." 

Various sounds such as might be made by throw- 
ing things about, knocks, and such like were heard. 
Also the front door bell rang unaccountably. The 






2t4 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

new servant mentioned ' that she thought queer 
noises occurred in the house. Said, often when 
in bed she heard footsteps coming up and down 
stairs by her door." On October 16th, " a visitor 
slept in front bedroom. He stated next morning 
that about 1.30 he had heard a peculiar crisp 
noise in his room, something like a silk dress 
rustling." On December 9th, the tenant of the 
house, being alone, (it was Sunday evening), heard 
a noise of which he said, ' I can only compare the 
sound to that which would be made if half a brick 
were tied to a piece of string and jerked about over 
the linoleum.' This sound "seemed to commence 
close to the door of the room in which I was sitting ; 
it appeared to proceed along the passage, to the top 
of the kitchen stairs — traversing a distance of some 
15 feet in about half-a-dozen jumps — and then it 
seemed to turn the staircase corner, and to jump 
down three or four stairs one at a time. I went out, 
carrying my reading lamp with me, but nothing 
could I find, either in the passage or down the 
kitchen stairs. So, much puzzled, I returned and 
resumed my writing. In about five minutes the 
bumps began again, seeming to me to come from 
the part of the kitchen stairs where they had 
previously left off. This time I ran out too quickly 
to take the lamp with me. Just as I reached the 
head of the stairs the knocks stopped again. All 
was now dark, but fearing to lose time by returning 
for the lamp I went downstairs backwards, feeling 
along each stair with my hands as I proceeded. 
Reaching the bottom, I stepped into the kitchen and 
turned up the gas there, but nowhere was anything 
to be seen which could have caused the curious 
sounds. More perplexed still, I returned once more 
to my writing, but had scarcely shut the sitting-room 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 2T$ 

door and settled myself at the desk when three sharp 
thumps sounded on the floor just outside the door. 
I sprang across the room and threw the door open. 
Nothing was to be seen. Again I searched in all 
directions — without getting the slightest hint of an 
explanation. . . The idea that the noises really 
occurred in the next (empty) house does not com- 
mend itself to me for the simple reason that they 
seemed to be so distinctly in the places referred to. 
I was the only person in the house. We had no cat 
at the time ; and we never at any time found any 
indications of mice in the place." 

Dec. 15. "A most remarkable and inexplicable 
noise occurred at n. 30 p.m. on this date. Our 
bedroom adjoined the sitting-room, and was separ- 
ated from it by curtains. Across one corner of the 
sitting-room (one of the corners adjoining the bed- 
room) a piano was placed, and over this instrument, 
upon the wall, hung a guitar. The guitar, as most 
people are aware, has six strings — three silver and 
three gut. On this night I had retired before my 
wife, and had been in bed about five minutes ; she 
remained in the sitting-room in order to say her 
prayers by the fire, as it was a very cold night. In 
the midst of the quietness which ensued I suddenly 
heard the guitar play — pung, pang, ping — pung, pang, 
ping — here my wife called out in a loud awe-struck 
whisper, ' Did you hear that ? ' whilst even as she 
spoke a third pung, pang, ping, sounded clearly 
through the rooms. I immediately sprang out of 
bed and rushed in to her, finding her kneeling upon 
the hearthrug by an arm-chair, staring with astonish- 
ment at the guitar upon the wall. No more sounds 
were heard, though we sat waiting by the fire for 
over half-an-hour. My wife told me that she had 
been distracted once or twice during her prayers 



216 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

by a noise like someone sweeping their hand over 
the wall paper by the fireplace and in the recess 
across which the piano stood. . . She said that 
when the guitar sounded its chords (in arpeggio) for 
the third time, she was looking straight at the instru- 
ment, and such critical observation as she had at 
command under the surprise of the thing, satisfied 
her that there was nothing visible near it, and that 
it made no perceptible movement. 

Well, that is all. The three gut strings of the 
guitar unmistakably sounded three times in suc- 
cession, (making nine notes altogether), when no 
person was touching it, and nothing was touching 
it as far as we could discover. The first explanation 
which suggests itself is that the pegs slipped round 
slightly and so caused the strings to vibrate and 
emit sounds. . . But the answer to that sug- 
gestion is, ist, the sounds were not of that sort — they 
were more clear and musical than the result of 
slipping pegs would be ; 2nd, it is extremely im- 
probable that three pegs would each slip just enough 
to produce the corresponding chord in a lower key : 
3rd, if this improbable thing happened once, it could 
hardly happen three times in succession, and without 
the changes of pitch being noticed ; 4th, all six 
strings of the guitar were perfectly in tune next day : 
so slipping down is out of the question. How to 
account for the fact I do not know. I can only 
record it as it occurred, and leave it to others to 
estimate the probability of such a feat being accom- 
plished by mice, (in a house where mice were un- 
known), or by a moth (in December), or by some- 
thing similar which escaped our observation. 

January 13, 1889. When I came in, about 10.30, 
my wife informed me that when sitting alone during 
the evening she had heard the guitar make one note. 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 217 

January 24. To-day our maid-servant (from 
whom we believed the history and reputation of the 
house had been carefully kept), complained that she 
had heard outside her bedroom door ... a loud 
crash like a quantity of bottles being hurled upon 
the floor. 

February 16. Lieut. Colonel S., Sir L. G., and 
Captain N. occupied the two bedrooms. In the 
morning the two former reported hearing simultane- 
ously a noise, apparently on the linoleum between 
the open doors of the two rooms, like paper rustling 
or mortar falling. I believe they immediately rushed 
from their rooms and met on the landing. 

March 15. My wife's sister slept in top ba k 
bedroom on this and five or six following nights. 
After the first night she reported hearing three loud 
raps on her room door, such as might be done with a 
walking-stick. She could not say quite what time. 
She did not hear anything on the following 
nights. 

June 29. Mrs. V., a visitor, reported that when 
alone in the sitting-room, between seven and eight 
this evening, she heard a note from the guitar. Sub- 
sequently Mrs. V. stated that the note heard was 
somewhere about ' A above middle C If the note 
was as high as this, and came from the guitar, it 
must have been produced by one of the gut strings. 
Mrs. V. had no idea that the guitar had ever done 
this sort of thing." 

A subsequent tenant, who took possession on 
September 28, 1889, wrote on March 13, 1890, ' I 
am sorry to say we are thoroughly disappointed in 
the ghost ; we have neither heard nor seen anything 
which even a believer in ghosts could lay to their 
charge.' 

Mr. Podmore suggested that it is possible " These 



218 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

happenings may have been mere coincidence ; or the 
apparitions may have, in each case, been generated 
by the alarm caused by the occurrence of inexplicable 
noises, themselves possibly to be explained as hallu- 
cinatory superstructures built up round a nucleus of 
real sounds. Or, it is permissible to conjecture that 
the later experiences may have been started by 
thought - transference from Miss Morris, whose 
thoughts, no doubt occasionally, turned to^the house 
in which she had suffered so much agitation and 
alarm." 

Mr. Myers commented on the above as follows : — 
" Miss Morris, who had left the house for a full year 
when the new disturbances began, can hardly be 
imagined to have been still in a state of active panic. 
Still we may suppose, as Mr. Podmore says, that she 
at times thought over her past annoyances. The 
result of these fatal recollections should certainly 
teach us to control our thoughts as strictly as our 
actions. For the very first effect of Miss Morris's 
ponderings was " a deep sob and moan," followed by 
a thump, and a cry of, " Oh, do forgive me ; " all 
disturbing poor Mrs. G. who had the ill luck to find 
herself in a bedroom about which Miss Morris was 
possibly thinking. Worse was to come, as the nar- 
rative shows ; and at last the unconscious Miss Morris 
drove Mrs. G. out of the house in despair. Surely on 
this view the peace of us all rests on a sadly uncertain 
tenure ! Many things — experiences quite other than 
ghostly — have happened in many houses on which 
former occupants may look back with feelings of 
regret or horror. There might indeed be a complex 
group of phantasms waiting for each new comer if 
the accumulated reminiscences of all previous inmates 
took ghostly form before his eyes." 

(Proceedings VI. p. 326,7). 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 219 

It will be noted that the phantasms seen, and the 
sounds heard by the various occupants of the house 
varied very considerably. This is by no means an un- 
usual feature in the case of a haunted house, and has 
sometimes been brought forward as an argument 
against the veridity of the hauntingjin question. But 
we know too little about the subject to be able to say 
whether any special detail of phenomena renders a 
case more or less probable ; all we can reasonably 
attempt is to decide for or against the value and 
reliability of the evidence given by the various normal 
human beings who profess to have seen or heard 
abnormal things, on the same grounds on which 
evidence would be accepted or rejected by a jury. 

Certain cases seem to suggest the possibility that, 
just as some men and women become mediums, so 
do some houses become mediumistic. Such a case is 
referred to by Miss Goodrich Freer, in her Essays on 
Psychical Research, where she writes : — " Another 
' haunted house ' with which I have been all my life 
familiar, is one as to which I, and many others, could 
tell countless stories. There is no association of the 
things seen and heard with any former occupants, 
though it may be instructive to note that the nearest 
house has an exceedingly definite and local ' ghost' 
Here, however, there has been a great variety as to 
the ghosts seen and heard ; so much so that it might 
be more correct to say that it is a house the occupants 
of which become haunted, rather than that it is 
a haunted house. Visitors see the doubles of distant 
friends; servants describe the persons of former visitors 
whom they have never seen. Even as a child of eight 
and upwards, I have frequently had in the ' haunted ' 
room, visions which we should now classify as tele- 
pathic, intimations of the death of persons in whom 
at that age I felt no interest : vivid — I might almost 



220 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

say intense, intuitions as to persons and events, other- 
wise beyond my power of criticism, and which I now 
know to have been justified. The house has repeat- 
edly changed hands ; my friends, like other previous 
and subsequent occupants, found it a very undesir- 
able habitation, and were glad to get rid of it on 
almost any terms. No tenants could be induced to 
remain, and the property has finally been sacrificed 
at considerable pecuniary loss. Such a house might 
perhaps be described as a haunted atmosphere." 

The following most remarkable ' ghost story,' was 
brought to the notice of the Society for Psychical 
Research, by Mr. Andrew Lang, who, on Oct. 17, 
1893, wrote as follows: — "I send the following nar- 
rative, not for its value as evidence, but because it 
enables us to take a ghost half volley, as it were ; the 
adventure being, to my knowledge, at this moment 
incomplete. The proceedings of the ghost, it will be 
remarked, are vieux jeu> and such as we seldom meet 
in modern science. The tale was told me orally, last 
night, Oct. 16, by a gentleman whom I shall call Dr. 
Ferrier ; he is connected as trustee with the haunted 
house. To-day he brought me his narrative. Here 
begins his M.S. with all names altered. A. L." Mr. 
Lang gives his own account of this affair in his book, 
" Dreams and Ghosts," explaining that he was dining 
with Dr. Ferrier on Oct. 16, and the ghost story came 
up casually in the course of dinner. Had it not been 
for Mr. Lang's presence at that dinner, it is probable 
the story would never have been published. 

Dr. Ferrier stated : — " Mrs. Elizabeth Blackburn 
died at 5 a.m. on December 22nd. 1878, in 6 Blake 
Street, into which she had moved only a few days pre- 
viously. Her disease was chronic diarrhoea of long 
standing. Her children stayed on in the house till 
the eldest girl married Mr. Appleby in 1880. The 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 221 

eldest son informed me that they frequently heard 
strange noises in the house during the night. The 
house was empty for a time ; then tenanted for five 
years during which no noises were reported. The 
house again was empty until Lady-Day, 1888, when 
the present occupier, Mr. Buckley, entered. His 
mother and two sisters, on their entry, were much 
alarmed by sounds as of heavy steps on the staircase, 
which is of stone. This lasted for three years but 
was never heard by Mr. Buckley. A few months 
after the family entered, water burst out in the front 
area, from the breaking of a water main." (Mr. 
Lang notes, " Water is only carried up to the first 
floor. There is an unused system of hot air pipes. 
The sounds lasted after the main was mended.") 

"About two years after the affair of the main, Miss 
Buckley was in the attic, kneeling by a trunk, when 
she felt some water ' switched ' at her. She thought 
it was a practical joke of her brother's, but he was 
not in the room. A small pool of water was on the 
floor where she stood, and the wall beyond was 
sprinkled. Soon after, as Mr. Buckley went upstairs, 
in the dark, carrying an ink bottle and some pens, he 
found his hand was wet. He thought it must be ink, 
but on getting to the light found it was clean water ; 
there was a little pool of water on the stair where this 
occurred, but no sign of damp on the ceiling above. 
For almost two years since this occurred, no noises 
have been heard." 

The facts stated above were all known to Dr. 
Ferrier before. — " In October 1893, a Mrs. Claughton 
came to stay in the house. She had frequently been 
a visitor, and on one occasion, when nursing Mrs. 
Buckley {mere), had heard footsteps and the dragging 
of a heavy weight on the stairs about 1 a.m. On the 
night of October 8th and 9th, after hearing noises — 



222 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

she opened her eyes, and saw leaning over her the 
figure of a woman, who was looking at her intently 
and very sadly. The woman said in a distinct voice, 
' Follow me ! ' whereon Mrs. Claughton rose and 
followed her into the next room, the drawing-room. 
She took her bedroom candle which was flickering in 
the socket, and, in the drawing-room, paused to re- 
place it by a pink candle from a table. She then 
saw that the figure had reached the further end of the 
drawing-room ; the figure turned her head, said, in a 
distinct voice, 'to-morrow,' and vanished." 

On the following morning Mrs. Claughton con- 
sulted Dr. Ferrier, who appears to have been an old 
friend. He advised her to change her room, which 
she disdained as cowardly. He suggested fixing up 
an electric alarm in her room, which was done. 
Next night the Buckleys were wakened by the 
alarm wildly pealed, and found Mrs. Claughton in a 
swoon on her bed, at 1.30 a.m. 

Mrs. Claughton eventually explained that the 
ghost of Mrs. Blackburn had appeared again, with 
two others, and after making her take solemn oaths 
of secrecy, made her a certain communication, and 
asked her to do certain things. Mrs. Claughton was 
to go to a place she had never heard of, to a house 
and a man whom the phantom described. This man 
would help her in what she had to do, including a 
nocturnal visit to a church where she would receive 
some information. Mrs Claughton wrote these 
directions in her diary. Mrs. Claughton did not 
directly name the place, but asked Mr. Buckley if he 
had ever heard of such a place as Meresby, (not the 
real name), which is an obscure village, within four 
to five hours of London. 

Dr. Ferrier concluded his statement by saying 
"Mrs. Claughton left the town where these events 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 223 

occurred on October nth for London, meaning to 
visit Meresby as soon as possible. Here my in- 
formation ceases." Mrs. Claughton had asked Dr. 
Ferrier for the date of Mrs. Blackburn's marriage. 
He sent her a note giving place and date. Mrs. 
Claughton at once showed Mr. Buckley and Dr. 
Ferrier that date noted in her diary. 

Mrs. Claughton eventually gave a long account 
of her experiences to the (late) Marquis of Bute ; 
in which she explains that the ghost who first 
appeared to her purported to be that of Mrs. 
Blackburn, who had died in the house ; in order to 
prove this the apparition had given the date of her 
marriage, hence Mrs. Claughton's inquiries concerning 
it. On the second night the apparition of Mrs. 
Blackburn was accompanied by two others, men, one 
of whom stated himself to be George Howard, 
buried in Meresby Churchyard, and gave the dates 
of his marriage and death. (Mr. Myers saw entries 
of these dates in Mrs. Claughton's pocket book). He 
desired Mrs. Claughton to go to Meresby and verify 
these dates in the registers, and, if found correct, to 
go to the church at the ensuing 1.15 a.m. and wait 
at the grave therein, (S.W. corner of S. aisle) of 
Richard Hart died — ; aetat — . She was to verify 
this reference also in the registers. He said her 
railway ticket would not be taken, and she was 
to send it along with a white rose from his grave to Dr. 
Ferrier. Said Joseph Wright, a dark man, to whom 
she should describe him, would help her. That she 
would lodge with a woman who would tell her that 
she had a child (drowned) buried in the same 
churchyard. When Mrs. Claughton had done all 
this, she should hear the rest of the history. Towards 
the end of the conversation, Mrs. Claughton saw a 
third phantom, of a man whose name she is not free 



224 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

to give, in great trouble, standing with hands on face 
(which he afterwards lowered, showing face), behind 
Mrs. Blackburn's right. The three disappeared. 
Mrs. Claughton rose and went to the door to look 
out at the clock, but was seized with faintness, 
returned and rang the bell. Mr. Buckley found her 
on the ground, she was able to ask the time, which 
was about 1.20. 

The fact that Mrs. Claughton went to Meresby is 
proved by the following letter from the Clerk of that 
parish, who in answer to inquiries, wrote on October 
22, 1893, as follows : — " I am clerk of the Parish of 
Meresby. On Saturday evening, October 14th, a 
lady who gave the name of Claughton, after going to 
several places for lodgings, came to my house, 
accompanied by porter and luggage. I accommodated 
the lady with lodgings. She told me that she wanted 
to look at the church registers, and did I think the 
curate would come and speak to her at my house. 
I told her I thought he would, as she would like to 
see them on Sunday. The lady then sent note by 
porter to curate, who was just going out to dinner, 
so did not come till about half-past eleven, when 
lady had retired to bed. He asked me to apologise 
to her for not coming before, but would be happy 
for her to see registers on Sunday morning after 
service. The lady came to morning service, and 
afterwards came to the vestry and asked for registers 
of Richard Hart and George Howard, also giving 
description of George Howard, which was quite 
correct ; and dates of registers also corresponded 
with those in the lady's journal. I then showed her 
the tombstone of Richard Hart, and also the grave 
of George Howard. Curate refusing to assist lady 
any further, the lady asked me whether I would 
accompany her to the church at twenty minutes past 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 225 

one Monday morning. I told her I could not give 
a decided answer just then, but would do so after 
evening service. Spoke to curate upon the matter 
after service. He told me that he should not have any 
more to do with it, but that I could do as I liked. I 
then told lady I would do as requested. At a 
quarter to one o'clock I called her. We then 
proceeded to the church, and after looking all around 
the interior, I left the lady in the church at twenty 
past one o'clock in total darkness, locking the door 
on the outside. At twenty minutes to two o'clock, 
by the lady's request, I gave three slight taps 
on the door, unlocked it, when the lady came out. 
We then went to grave of George Howard, where 
the lady plucked some roses. We then returned, 
reaching home at about two o'clock. 

(Signed) Joseph Wright, 
Parish Clerk. 

Meresby Oct. 22. 1893." 

Mrs. Claughton dictated, (in the third person), to 
the Marquis of Bute, a detailed account of her ghostly 
experiences, which concludes by describing her 
experiences in the church. " To church with Joseph 
Wright at 1 a.m., with whom searched interior and 
found it empty. At 1.20 was locked in alone, having 
no light ; had been told to take Bible, but had only 
Church-service," (which she had left in the vestry in 
the morning.) " Waited near grave of Richard Hart. 
Felt no fear. Received communication, but does 
not feel free to give any detail. No light. History 
begun at Blake Street then completed. Was directed 
to take another white rose from George Howard's 
grave, and give it personally to his daughter (un- 
married, living at Hart Hall), and to remark on her 
likeness to him. About 1.45 Joseph Wright knocked 
P 



226 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

and let Mrs. Claughton out. Went to George 
Howard's grave and gathered rose for Miss Howard, 
as had been directed. Home and bed, and slept 
well for the first time since first seeing Mrs. Blackburn. 
Called on Miss Howard and recognised strong like- 
ness to her father : carried out all things desired by 
the dead to the full, as had been requested. Has 
had no communication from any of them since. 
Nothing since has appeared in Blake Street. The 
wishes expressed to her were not illogical or un- 
reasonable, as the ratiocination of dreams often 
appears, but perfectly rational, reasonable, and of 
natural importance." 

A gentleman, named Johnson, of Barton, was 
asked by Dr. Ferrier to inquire at Meresby as to Mrs. 
Claughton's proceedings. To this gentleman, or to 
some other inquirer, the Clerk of Meresby stated that 
Mrs. Claughton had described 'one of the local ghosts,' 
apparently Mr. Howard, as he was when alive, 
correctly. The clerk also corroborated the fact of 
Mrs. Claughton's visit to Miss Howard. The various 
predictions of the ghosts concerning the events of 
her journey were all fulfilled ; her railway ticket was 
not given up, and she subsequently sent it to Dr. 
Ferrier ; the Railway Company on being asked replied 
by letter that only one ticket had been issued for 
that train from London to Meresby. 

Mr. Myers wrote, " The narrative is of an 
unusual and complex type. Its main purport is 
concerned with a continued knowledge of terrene 
affairs evinced by a departed spirit. But this, the 
kernel of the case, must be kept entirely secret, for 
reasons affecting survivors ; which reasons, as far as 
I can judge from a very partial knowledge of them, 
are entirely sufficient. For the same reasons the 
names, {all of which are knozvn to me) have had to 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 227 

be altered throughout, and various details omitted. 
Thus deprived of its central significance the narrative 
presents the following type." 

(Summary of details already given.) 

" This whole story is no doubt very different from 
the usual tenor of our (S.P.R.) narratives, and much 
more resembles some of the figments of romance. 
On the other hand the evidence for the external facts 
of the narrative is absolutely conclusive. There is 
no doubt whatever that Mrs. Claughton did make the 
journey to Meresby, giving as her reason some 
message conveyed to her on an occasion when she 
was undoubtedly found fainting in the middle of the 
night. There is no doubt that at Meresby she 
obtained admission to the church at a similar hour of 
the night ; nor that after so visiting the church she 
paid certain other visits to persons previously 
strangers to her. 

" Nor has any explanation due either to self-interest 
or to insanity been suggested, so far as I can dis- 
cover, by any of the persons concerned. The whole 
expedition was a source merely of trouble and 
embarrassment to Mrs. Claughton, who left a sick 
child to attend to the alleged injunction, under 
circumstances of much inconvenience, and with no 
possible advantage to herself. An explanation from 
insanity or hysterical desire for notoriety is equally 
untenable. Mrs. Claughton is a widow lady, moving 
in good society, with children growing up, and 
known to many persons as a cheerful, capable, 
active woman, who has seen much of the world, and 
has plenty of business of her own to attend to : — and 
who is by no means given to dwelling on things 
morbid or mysterious. She has, indeed, had some 
previous experiences of apparitions, which all appear 



228 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 



to have been veridical, but she has paid little 
attention to them, and has never sought to en- 
courage such visitations in any way. This present 
adventure she kept as quiet as she could ; but other 
people had heard vaguely of it, and she was annoyed 
by distorted versions ; so that she ultimately con- 
sented to give to the Marquis of Bute, and through 
him to our Society, her own account of such in- 
cidents, as she did not for the sake of survivors, feel 
bound to conceal." 

Mr. Andrew Lang, who as we have seen, was not 
impressed at the outset by the evidential value of the 
story, seems to have remained in that sceptical 
frame of mind until the Railway Company and the 
Parish Clerk, confirmed the truth of Mrs. Claughton's 
statements concerning her visit to Meresby. He 
finally sums up the matter as follows: — "Of this 
story the only conceivable natural explanation is 
that Mrs. Claughton, to serve her private ends, paid 
secret preliminary visits to Meresby, 'got up' there 
a number of minute facts, chose a haunted house at 
the other end of England as a first scene in her little 
drama, and made the rest of the troublesome journeys, 
not to mention the uncomfortable visit to a dark 
church at midnight, and did all this from an 
hysterical love of notoriety. This desirable boon she 
would probably never have obtained, even as far as 
it is consistent with a pseudonym, if I had not 
chanced to dine with Dr. Ferrier while the adventure 
was only beginning. Two years later Mrs. Claughton 
consented to tell the Society for Psychical Research 
as much as she thinks it fair to reveal. This, it will 
be confessed, is a roundabout way of obtaining fame. 
— There I leave those ghosts, my mind being in a 
just balance of agnosticism. If ghosts at all, they 
were ghosts with a purpose. The species is very rare." 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 229 

Mr. Myers comments on the subject of apparitions 
as follows : — 

" We have no warrant for the assumption that the 
phantom seen, even though it be somehow caused by 
a deceased person, is that deceased person, in any 
ordinary sense of the word. Instead of appealing to 
the crude analogy of the living friend who, when he 
has walked into the room, is in the room ; we shall 
find for the ghost a much closer parallel in those 
hallucinary figures or phantasms which living persons 
can sometimes project at a distance. When Baron 
von Notzing, for instance, caused by an effort of will 
an apparition of himself to a waking percipient, out 
of sight ; he was himself awake and conscious in the 
place where, not his phantom, but his body stood. 
Whatever, then, that phantom was, — however 
generated or conditioned, — we cannot say it was 
himself. And equally unjustifiable must be the 
common parlance which speaks of the ghost as though 
it were the decedent himself — a revenant coming 
back amongst living men." 

All this, of course, will be already familiar to most 
of my readers, and only needs repetition here because 
experience shows that when, — as with these post- 
mortem phantoms, — the decedent has gone well out 
of sight and reach, there is a fresh tendency (so to 
say) to anthropomorphise the apparition ; to suppose 
that, as the decedent is not provably anywhere else, 
he is probably here ; and that the apparition is bound 
to behave accordingly. All such assumptions must 
be dismissed, and the phantom must be taken on its 
merits, as indicating merely a certain connection with 
the decedent, the precise nature of that connection 
being a part of the problem to be solved. 

And — just as we cease to say that the phantom is 
the decedent, so also must we cease to ascribe to 



230 HAUNTED LOCALITIES 

the phantom, the motives by which we imagine that 
the decedent might be swayed. We must therefore 
exclude from our definition of a ghost any words 
which assume its intention to communicate with the 
living. It may bear such a relation to the decedent 
that it can reflect or represent his presumed wish to 
communicate, or it may not. If, for instance, its 
relation to his post-mortem life be like the relation of 
my dreams to my earthly life, it may represent little 
that is truly his, save such vague memories and 
instincts as give a dim individuality to each man's 
trivial dreams. 

Let us attempt, then, a truer definition. Instead 
of describing a ' ghost ' as a dead person permitted 
to communicate with the living, let us define it as a 
manifestation of persistent personal energy ; — or as 
an indication that some kind of force is being ex- 
ercised after death, which is in some way connected 
with a person previously known on earth. In this 
definition we have eliminated, as will be seen, a great 
mass of popular assumptions. Yet we must in- 
troduce a further proviso, lest our definition still seem 
to imply an assumption which we have no right to 
make. It is theoretically possible that this force or 
influence which after a man's death, creates a 
phantasmal impression of him, may indicate no con- 
tinuing action on his part, but may be some residue 
of the force or energy which he generated while yet 
alive. There may be veridical after-images : — such 
as Mr. Gurney hints at {Proceedings Vol., p. 417), 
when in his comments on the recurring figure of an 
old woman ; — seen on the bed where she was 
murdered, — he remarked that this figure suggests 
' not so much any continuing local action on the part 
of the deceased person, as the survival of a mere 
image, impressed, we cannot guess how, by that 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 231 

person's physical organism ; and perceptible at times 
to those endowed with some cognate form of sen- 
sitiveness.' 

Strange as this notion may seem, it is strongly 
suggested by many of the cases of haunting which 
do not fall within the scope of the present paper. 
It will be remembered that Mrs. Sidgwick's paper 
on Phantasms of the Dead, brought out the fact that 
there is strong evidence for the recurrence of the 
same hallucinatory figures in the same localities ; 
but weak evidence to indicate any purpose in most 
of these figures, or any connection with bygone 
individuals, or with such tragedies as are popularly 
supposed to start a ghost on its career. In some of 
these cases of frequent meaningless recurrence of a 
figure in a given spot, we are driven to wonder 
whether it can be some decedent's past frequentation 
of that spot, rather than any fresh action of his after 
death, which has generated what I have termed the 
veridical after-image, — veridical in the sense that it 
communicates information, previously unknown to 
the percipient, as to a former inhabitant of the haunted 
locality. 

" Such are some of the questions which our evidence 
suggests. And I may point out that the very fact 
that such bizarre problems should present themselves 
at every turn, does in a certain sense tend to show 
that these apparitions are not purely subjective things, 
— do not originate merely in the percipient's imagina- 
tion. For they are not like what any man would have 
imagined. What man's mind tends to fancy on such 
topics may be seen in the endless crop of fictitious 
ghost-stories ; which furnish, indeed, a curious proof 
of the persistence of preconceived notions. For they 
go on being framed according to canons of their own, 
and deal with a set of imaginary phenomena quite 



232 



HAUNTED LOCALITIES 



different from those which actually occur. The 
actual phenomena I may add could scarcely be made 
romantic. One true ' ghost-story ' is apt to be very 
like another ; and all to be fragmentary, and 
apparently meaningless. Their meaning, that is to 
say, lies in their conformity, not to the mythopoeic 
instinct of mankind, which fabricates and enjoys the 
fictitious tales ; but to some unknown law, not based 
on human sentiment or convenience at all. 

" And thus, absurdly enough, we sometimes hear 
men ridicule the phenomena which actually do 
happen, simply because those phenomena do not 
suit their preconceived notions of what ghostly 
phenomena ought to be ; not perceiving that this 
very divergence, this very unexpectedness, is itself 
no slight indication of an origin outside the minds 
which obviously were so far from anticipating 
anything of the kind." Proceedings Vol. VI. 



CHAPTER X 

POLTERGEISTS 

THE word Poltergeist signifies a noisy-ghost , or 
hooligan-spirit ; and is applied to the type of haunting 
exemplified in the occurrences at Epworth Rectory 
which are vividly described in contemporary 
letters by various members of the Wesley family. 
Similar disturbances have been recorded as taking 
place in all parts of the world, and in ancient as well 
as modern times, both in civilized and uncivilized 
regions. Loud noises are heard ; stones, live coals, 
burning sticks, and all sorts of pieces of furniture are 
thrown about, and in almost every instance the 
disturbances seem to centre round the person of a 
young girl or boy. (It may be noted in passing that 
a rather large proportion of those described in the 
New Testament as being diabolically possessed were 
boys and girls). 

The sole cause may be deliberate and intentional 
trickery on the part of individual boys and girls. 
But if so it is rather difficult to explain how, by 
extraordinary coincidence, ill-educated and unread 
children reproduce again and again a certain type 
of trickery, which it seems certain they can never 
have read of or heard of. Some people are inclined 
to think that what I may term poltergeisting is a form 



234 POLTERGEISTS 

of hysteria, in which the agent is partly conscious, and 
partly unconscious of the various impish tricks he or 
she plays. This would make it a physical matter 
caused by a derangement of the nervous system or 
of the brain ; and this might account for the 
similarity of the phenomena, as in the case of other 
mental and nervous diseases. 

Of modern instances one of the best known is the 
Worksop case, which was carefully investigated by Mr. 
F. Podmore a few weeks after the events had taken 
place ; his report being published in S.P.R. Pro- 
ceedings Vol. XII. 

On Saturday, April 7th, 1883, Mr. F. Podmore 
went to Worksop, (as he stated in a report dated 
April 11, 1883,) "with the intention of inspecting the 
actual scene of the occurrences, and of personally 
interrogating the principal witnesses ; in order if 
possible to arrive at some rational explanation of 
the business. I spent the Saturday evening and the 
whole of the following day in my inquiries, and have 
I think obtained as intelligible and trustworthy a 
history of the matter as the lapse of time, the nature 
of the phenomena themselves, and the character of 
the witnesses will permit." After describing the 
house and its surroundings, Mr. Podmore continued, 
" The history of the disturbances, as gathered from 
the various witnesses whom I interrogated, appears 
to be briefly as follows : — 

" Nothing remarkable had been heard or seen in the 
house until about the 20th or 21st of February, 1883, 
when, as Mrs. White was alone with two of the 
children in the kitchen one evening, washing up the 
tea things at the table, the table tilted up at a consider- 
able angle ; the candle was upset, and the wash-tub 
only saved by Mrs. White holding it. She positively 
assured me that she exerted no pressure whatever 



POLTERGEISTS 235 

upon the table, and the whole incident struck her as 
very extraordinary. Her husband made light of it 
at the time. 

" On Monday, February 26th, White was absent 
from home until the Wednesday afternoon. On 
the Monday his wife allowed a girl, Eliza Rose, the 
child of an imbecile mother, to come into the house 
and share her bed at night. White returned on 
Wednesday night, but left on the following morning 
until Friday afternoon. During that one night the 
girl slept on the squab sofa, downstairs. On 
Thursday night, March 1st, at about 11 p.m., Tom 
White, (brother of Joe White, the owner of the 
house), went up to bed — the children having gone 
up some hours before. At about 11.30, Mrs. White 
and Eliza Rose being then alone in the kitchen, 
various things such as a corkscrew, clothes pegs, a 
salt-cellar, etc., which had been in the kitchen only 
a few minutes before, came tumbling step by step 
down the stairs. Tom solemnly and positively 
denied having thrown the articles, and the mystery 
was increased when at least twenty minutes after he 
had gone upstairs (again) no one having left the room 
in the interval, some hot coals were thrown down. 

" On the following night, March 2nd, at about the 
same hour— White, Mrs. White, and Rose being in 
the kitchen — a noise was heard as of someone coming 
down the passage (outside) and stopping just outside 
the outer door. White told Rose to open the door, 
but she was too frightened to do so. Then they 
heard a surcingle and immediately afterwards some 
pieces of carpet thrown down the stairs. Then 
followed some knives and forks and other things. 
The girl picked them up ; but they followed still 
faster. White then left the room to go up to Tom. 
During his absence one of the ornaments flew off the 



236 POLTERGEISTS 

mantelpiece into the corner of the room near the 
door. Nothing was seen by the two women ; but 
they heard it fall, and found it there. Their screams 
summoned White down ; as he entered the room his 
candle went out, and something struck him on the 
forehead. The girl picked up the candle — which 
appears to have left the candlestick — and two new 
ones which had not been in the house previously, 
from the ground, and as soon as a candle was lit, a 
little china woman left the mantelpiece, and flew into 
the corner where it was seen by White. As soon as 
it was replaced it flew across the room again and was 
broken. Other things followed, and the women 
being very frightened, and White thinking that the 
disturbances presaged the death of his child, who was 
very ill with an abscess in the back, sent Tom (who 
was afraid to go alone), with Ford, (who seems to 
have been passing), to fetch the doctor. Mrs. White 
meanwhile took one of the children next door. 
Rose approached the inner room to fetch another, 
when things immediately began to fly about and 
smash themselves in that room. After this all appear 
to have been absent from the house for a short time. 
White then returned, with Higgs, a policeman, and 
whilst they were alone in the kitchen, standing near 
the door, a glass jar flew out of the cupboard into 
the yard ; a tumbler also fell from a chest of drawers 
into the kitchen, when only Higgs was near it. Both 
then went into the inner room, and found the chest 
of drawers there turned up on end and smashed. On 
their return they found Rose, Wass, (the next door 
neighbour), and Tom White in the kitchen, and all 
saw a cream jug, which Rose had just placed on the 
bin, fly four feet up in the air and smash on the floor. 
Dr. Lloyd and Mrs. White then entered, and in the 
presence of all these witnesses, a basin was seen to 



POLTERGEISTS 237 

rise slowly from the bin— no person being near it 
except Dr. Lloyd and Higgs. It touched the ceiling, 
and then fell suddenly to the floor, and was smashed. 
This was at 12 p.m. All then left except Tom White 
and his brother. The disturbances continued until 
2 a.m., when all grew quiet, and the Whites slept. 
At about 8 a.m. on Saturday, the 3rd. the disturbances 
began again. 

"White left the kitchen to attend to some pigs; and 
in his absence, Mrs White and Rose were left alone 
in the kitchen. A nearly empty port wine bottle 
leaped up from the table about four feet in the air, 
and fell into a bucket of milk, standing on the table, 
from which Mrs White was filling some jugs. Then 
Currass appears to have been attracted to the scene. 
He entered with White, young Wass, and others, and 
viewed the inner room. They had but just returned 
to the kitchen, leaving the inner room empty, and 
the door of communication open, when the American 
clock, which hung over the bed was heard to strike. 
(It had not done so for 18 months previously.) A 
crash was then heard, and Currass, who was nearest 
the door, looked in, and found that the clock had 
fallen over the bed — about four feet broad — and was 
lying on the floor. Shortly afterwards — no one 
being near it — a china dog flew off the mantelpiece, 
and smashed itself in the corner near the door. 
Currass and some others then left. 

"A plate, a cream jug, and some other things, then 
flew up in the air, and smashed themselves in view of 
all who were in the kitchen. White then lay down 
on the sofa ; but disturbances continued during his 
siesta. In particular, some pictures on the wall next 
the pantry began to move, but were taken down at 
once by his brother. At about 2 p.m. a Salvation 
Army woman came in and talked to White. A 



238 POLTERGEISTS 

candlestick flew from the bin, and fell behind the 
Salvation Army woman as she stood near the pantry 
door. She left the room in terror. 

" Other things then followed at intervals. A full 
medicine bottle fell without breaking. An empty 
medicine bottle and a lamp-glass fell and broke 
themselves. It was then about 4 p.m. and White 
could stand it no longer. He told the girl she must 
go ; she did in fact leave before 5 p.m. After her 
departure nothing whatever of an abnormal character 
took place, and the house has remained undisturbed 
up to the present time. (April 7, 1883.) 

" With regard to the position of the persons 
present, in relation to the objects moved, it may be 
stated generally that there was no possibility in most 
cases of the objects having been thrown by hand. . . 
The objects were frequently moved in a remote 
corner of the room, or even in an adjoining room. 
Moreover the character of the movements, in many 
cases, was such as to preclude the possibility of the 
objects having been thrown. 

" Of course the obvious explanation of these 
occurrences is trickery on the part of some of the 
persons present. In regard to this it seems to me a 
matter of very little significance that most of the 
educated people in Worksop believe White himself 
to have caused the disturbance. For most educated 
persons, as we know, would not be ready to admit 
any other than a mechanical explanation. . . . But 
whilst believing White to be at the bottom of the 
matter, none of the persons with whom I conversed 
were prepared with any ^explanation of his modus 
operandi. That he should have thrown the things 
was universally admitted to be impossible. And 
beyond this, I could discover little more than an 
unquestioning faith in the omnipotence of electricity. 



POLTERGEISTS 239 

No one professed to have any idea of what 
mechanical means could have been employed, or 
how they could have been adapted to the end in 
view. Still less did anyone pretend to have 
discovered any indications in the house itself of any 
machinery being used. (I looked all over the house 
in daylight, but could discern no holes in the walls or 
ceilings, nor any trace of the extensive and elaborate 
machinery which would have been required to 
produce the movements by mechanical means.) 
Moreover, there was a total absence of any apparent 
motive on White's part. . . . Whilst he was 
unquestionably a considerable loser — to the extent of 
nearly £9 as estimated by himself — by the articles 
broken, he appears to have reaped no corresponding 
advantage. 

"Again, had White himself been the principal agent 
in the matter, it is clear that he must have had two 
confederates, for he was not himself present during 
the disturbances on the Thursday night — which 
might indeed have been caused by his brother Tom 
— nor was either he or his brother present during 
some of the occurrences on the following day. 
Moreover, it is hard to conceive by what mechanical 
appliances, under the circumstances described, the 
movements could have been effected. . . . The 
objects thrown about in the kitchen moved generally, 
but by no means always, in the direction of the outer 
door. And it is noticeable that, in most cases, they 
do not appear to have been thrown, but in some 
manner borne or wafted across the room ; for though 
they fell on a stone floor 15ft. or 16ft. distant, 
they were often unbroken, and were rarely 
shivered. And it is impossible to reconcile the 
account given of the movement of some other objects, 
variously described (by the witnesses,) as 'jerky,' 



2 4 o POLTERGEISTS 

■ twirling,' and ' turning over and over,' with the 
supposition that the objects depended on any fixed 
support, or were in any way suspended. 

" Lastly, to suppose that these various objects were 
all moved by mechanical contrivances, argues 
incredible stupidity, amounting almost to imbecility 
on the part of all the persons present who were not 
in the plot. . . . Not only so, but Currass, Higgs, 
and Dr. Lloyd, all independent observers, assured 
me that they examined some of the objects which 
had been moved, immediately after the occurrence, 
with the express intention of discovering . . . any 
clue to an explanation of the matter, but entirely 
failed to do so." 

Statement by Joe White. — ( " A fair witness. I 
think that he always intended to speak the truth, but 
that occasionally his memory proved treacherous. 
In all important points, however, he was corroborated 
by his wife, (an excellent witness), Higgs, and 
Currass." F. Podmore.) 

" I returned home about 7 on the Friday night, 
(March 2nd.) I had been absent from home on 
Monday and Tuesday nights ; and it was during my 
absence that my wife took in the girl Rose, who 
shared her bed in the front inner room. I slept at 
home on Wednesday, and the girl then slept on the 
squab in the kitchen. I left again on Thursday 
morning, and returned as mentioned on the Friday. 
When told by my wife and Tom what had happened 
on Thursday night, I said someone must have been 
tricking, and didn't think much about it. But I 
chaffed the lass (Rose) a good deal for she was much 
frightened. 

" About 1 1.30 on Friday evening, when my wife, the 
girl, and I were alone in the kitchen, just going up to 
bed, I heard a noise as if someone had come down 



POLTERGEISTS 241 

the passage between the two houses, and were 
standing just outside our door. They didn't knock, 
but I said to Rose, ' Go and see who's there.' But 
she was frightened and didn't go. Then presently, a 
lot of things came rattling down the stairs. I don't 
know what came first : but a lot of things came — a 
surcingle, bits of carpet, knives and forks, a cork- 
screw, etc. The girl went to pick them up and put 
them on the table, and just as fast as she put them 
on, more things came down. Then my wife said to 
me, ' The salt cellar came down last night, but you 
won't have it down to-night, for here it is on the 
table.' She was using it at the time for salting- 
Tom's dinner for next day. She had hardly said 
this, when the salt cellar flew off the table, and into 
the corner near the outer door. Rose was in that 
corner, and not near the table : my wife was at the 
table, but certainly didn't touch the cellar. I saw 
the thing go, though I couldn't believe my eyes. 
My wife didn't see it go, but we both saw it as it 
struck the wall in the corner. All the salt was 
spilled out of it. I fairly couldn't believe my own 
eyes ; but I couldn't help thinking it must be Tom. 
So I went upstairs and told him to leave off. 
' Thoul't frighten our Liz to death.' He said, ' It's 
not me, Joe. I'll take my oath it isn't. I've never 
thrown nowt down.' Whilst I was still talking I 
heard a crash downstairs; and the women screamed ; 
and my wife cried ' Come down, Joe.' As I was just 
coming into the room the candle which I held in my 
hand went out — I don't know how at all — and we 
were left in darkness, except for the firelight. Then 
something hit me on the forehead, and I cried out, 
' Who threw that ? ' Then there was a crash in the 
corner. I found out when we had a light again that 
the salt cellar had fallen into the corner again, and 
Q 



242 POLTERGEISTS 

broken itself. Then I found out that the candle was 
not in the candlestick, and asked where it was. I 
told the girl to look for it, and then she felt among 
the things at the bottom of the stairs and picked up 
three candles, two of them quite new. We had only 
two candles in the house, (Mrs. White expressly 
confirmed this. — F. P.) which had been bought just 
before, and both were partly burnt. I lit the old 
ones and left the new ones on the table ; but they 
disappeared afterwards, and I have never seen them 
since. 

" When the candle was lit again, I saw the little 
china woman jump off from the mantelpiece, and go 
into the same corner. It fell on its side, and then 
righted itself, and stood upright, unbroken. I dis- 
tinctly saw it go through the air ; it passed near me 
as I stood about the middle of the room. None of 
us were near the mantelpiece. I picked it up, and 
presently it fell into the corner again, and broke 
itself. Then the tea-caddy and the candle-stick, all 
from the mantelpiece, followed. Then I went out 
and found George Ford ( ' Buck Ford ' ) and asked 
him to fetch Dr. Lloyd for the child — for they had 
told me that all this disturbance meant the death of 
the child, who was very ill with an abscess in its back. 

" Then I got my wife to take the little lad out, and 
lay him next door, he lying on the squab in the 
kitchen at the time. (Mrs. White said he was in the 
inner room, F.P.). Rose went with her, and they 
took all the children with them. Before going Rose 
had to go into the inner room, and then things began 
to fly about there and make a disturbance. All had 
been quiet before. I went after the others into the 
next house and stayed there some little time. When 
j came back, I found police-constable Higgs in the 
kitchen. He and I were alone there. (Rose all this 



POLTERGEISTS 243 

time was next door). We heard a crash in the inner 
room, and we went in— Solomon, Wass and Tom 
who had just entered, with us, and Higgs with his 
lantern— and we found the chest of drawers turned 
up on end, and the lustres and looking glass, and 
everything else that had been on it, in pieces on the 
floor. Then we came back into the kitchen, and we 
saw the cupboard door open, and a big glass jar flew 
out, and flew into the yard and broke itself. Also 
some things flew off the bin at the side of the door, 
from the end near the fire; and they pitched in the 
corner, and then went out into the yard. Things 
often pitched on the floor by the door first, and then 
got up again and flew out into the yard. 

" Then doctor Lloyd came in with my wife, and 
Higgs showed him what had happened in the inner room. 
Then when we had got into the kitchen again, and 
were all standing near the door of the inner room— 
Higgs, my wife, and Tom, and Wass, and Lloyd— 
who was about six feet from the bin, and the nearest 
to it of our party— we all saw a basin which was lying 
on the bin near the door get up two or three times in 
the air, rising slowly a few inches or perhaps a foot 
and then falling plump. (Mrs. White corroborated 
this, and so did Mr. Wass, the next door neighbour 
who was present. F.P.) Then it got up higher and 
went slowly, wobbling as it went, up to the ceiling, 
it fell down all at once and broke itself. (During this' 
scene the room was lighted by one candle, Higgs' 
lantern, and a blazing fire ; so the light was pretty 
good). Dr. Lloyd then looked in the bin, saying 
the devil must be in the house, and then left. All 
the others shortly afterwards left, Mrs. W., Rose, 
and the children stopping in the next house.' Tom 
and I sat in the chairs on either side of the fire until 
the next morning at 8 a.m. Things kept on moving 



244 POLTERGEISTS 

every now and then until about 2 a.m., and then all 
was quiet, and we got to sleep a bit. At about 8 a.m. 
1 had to go out to see after a pig which had been pig- 
ging, and then things began again ; and a lot of folks 
came in to see about it. Currass came in, and I went 
in with him into the inner room and showed him the 
chest of drawers, he and I alone ; we came out 
leaving the door open — I am quite sure it was open 
— and I was sitting near the fire, and Currass was 
just inside the kitchen, not far from the open door, 
when Wass's little lad, who was sitting at the table, 
said, 'There's the clock striking,' meaning the big 
clock which hung over our bed. I couldn't hear it, 
and I said it was a lie. Just then we heard a crash, and 
I asked what it was, and Currass looked round, and 
said it was the American clock had fallen right across 
the bed, and lay on the floor at the foot, with its bot- 
tom knocked out. Then I took it into the yard. I 
think — indeed I am sure, that Coulter was not here 
when all this happened. The other clock fell and 
was broken, but whether before or after I can't 
remember, and he may have seen that. I don't 
remember where the girl Rose was when the Ameri- 
can clock fell. She may have been in the kitchen, 
but she certainly wasn't in the inner room ; no one 
was in that room I am sure. I don't remember 
saying just at that time, though I often did say, that 
wherever she went the things smashed. 

" After that Currass and I and one or two others 
were standing near to the outer door talking, when 
the china dogs, or one of them, flew off the mantel- 
piece and smashed ; and lots of things kept flying into 
the corner and smashing. Then I was tired, and lay 
down on the squab ; but things kept moving. I was 
told some pictures on the wall began to move, but I 
didn't see them. At about 2 p.m. a Salvation Army 



POLTERGEISTS 245 

woman came in and was talking to me as I lay on 
the squab ; she stood near the inner door ; Rose was 
near the outer door. There were two candlesticks 
on the bin, at the end near the fireplace. Suddenly 
something - dropped behind the Salvation Army 
woman. No one saw it going through the air ; but we 
turned round and found it was one of the brass 
candlesticks. It was half balanced on the small end, 
where the candle goes, and was wobbling round on 
the end. Then the Salvation Army woman said ' I 
must go ; ' and she went. 

mt Then a little after, when Rose was going to lay 
down the carpet, and no one else was in the room, a 
medicine bottle, full, fell from the bin on to the roll 
of carpet, about three or four yards off, and was 
broken. A lamp glass had fallen several times with- 
out breaking; but at last that fell and broke. Then an 
empty bottle flew off the mantelpiece. That was one 
of the last things that happened. Well then, I 
couldn't stand it any longer. Wherever the lass 
seemed to go, things seemed to fly about. So I said 
to her, ' You'll have to go.' She began to roar. But 
my wife gave her some tea, and she went. That was 
between 4 and 5 p.m., very soon after the last dis- 
turbance. Nothing happened after she left. We 
sat up in the kitchen that evening, a lot of us — but 
nothing happened at all. 

(Signed) Joseph White. 
New Building Ground, Worksop. April, 8th 1883." 

Statement of Police Constable Higgs. (' A man of 
good intelligence, and believed to be entirely honest. 
Fully alive, as becomes his official position, to White's 
indifferent reputation, but unable to account for what 
he saw. F. Podmore '). 

" On the night of Friday March 2nd, I heard of 



246 POLTERGEISTS 

the disturbances at Joe White's house from his young 
brother Tom. I went round to the house at 11.55 
p.m., as near as I can judge, and found Joe White in 
the kitchen of his house. There was one candle 
lighted in the room, and a good fire burning, so that 
one could see things pretty clearly. The cupboard 
doors were open, and White went and shut them, and 
then came and stood against the chest of drawers. 
I stood near the outer door. No one else was in the 
room at the time. White had hardly shut the cup- 
board doors when. they flew open, and a large glass jar 
came out past me, and pitched in the yard outside, 
smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cup- 
board, or fly through the air ; it went too quick. But 
I am quite sure that it wasn't thrown by White or 
any one else. White couldn't have done it without 
my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight 
line from the cupboard out of the door ; but it 
certainly did go. 

" Then White asked me to come and see the things 
which had been smashed in the inner room. He 
led the way and I followed. As I passed the chest 
of drawers in the kitchen I noticed a tumbler stand- 
ing on it. Just after I passed I heard a crash, and 
looking round, I saw that the tumbler had fallen on 
the ground in the direction of the fireplace, and was 
broken. I don't know how it happened. There was 
no one else in the room. 

" I went into the inner room, and saw the bits of 
pots and things on the floor, and then I came back 
with White into the kitchen. The girl Rose had 
come into the kitchen during our absence. She was 
standing with her back against the bin near the fire. 
There was a cup standing on the bin, rather nearer 
the door. She said to me, ' Cup'll go soon ; it has 
been down three times already.' She then pushed 



POLTERGEISTS 247 

it a little further on the bin, and turned round and 
stood talking to me by the fire. She had hardly 
done so, when the cup jumped up suddenly about 
four or five feet into the air, and then fell on the 
floor and smashed itself. White was sitting on the 
other side of the fire. 

" Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd ; also 
Tom White and Solomon Wass. After they had been 
in two or three minutes, something else happened. 
Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs 
to the fire, just in front of it Eliza Rose and Dr. 
Lloyd were near them, with their backs turned 
towards the bin, the Doctor nearer to the door. I 
stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me 
near the inner door. Then suddenly a basin, which 
stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up 
into the air, turning over and over as it went. It 
went up not very quickly, not as quickly as if it had 
been thrown. When it reached the ceiling it fell 
plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention 
to this, and we all saw it. No one was near it, and 
I don't know how it happened. I stayed about ten 
minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know 
what to make of it all. I don't think White or the 
girl could possibly have done the things which I 
saw. 

(Signed) William Higgs, G. E. 30. 

April 10th, 1883." 

The signed testimony of other eye-witnesses is 
omitted here, but can be found in Proceedings XII. 

The Worksop case certainly adds weight to the 
dictum of Mr. Weller, senior, ' Nothing like an 
alleybi, Samrny, nothing.' If Joe White, Mrs. White, 
Tom White, and Eliza Rose had stood in the dock 
on the charge of causing these disturbances, each 



248 POLTERGEISTS 

one of them by the testimony of competent witnesses 
could have proved an alibi. When the table moved 
on February 2i, Mrs. White was alone in the kitchen 
with her children : (it would be interesting to know 
if Eliza Rose had been in the house recently) : and 
during the disturbances on March I, Joe White was 
away from home. On the night of March 2-3, 
though they were all four in the house when the 
disturbances recommenced, Mrs. White, Tom, and 
the girl were all out of the house when White and 
Higgs the policeman saw the glass jar emerge from 
the cupboard and take a circuitous course to the 
door. When the tumbler fell off the chest of 
drawers in the kitchen, the kitchen itself was empty, 
and Higgs was standing between White and the 
door leading into it. 

If the various crashes and smashes were the result 
of fraud and trickery, it must have been from a 
conspiracy of fraud and trickery. A complicated 
system of wires and pulleys must have been es- 
tablished through the walls and ceilings of the house, 
and much practice would presumably have been 
required before the conspirators attained the degree 
of perfection they exhibited to the astonished 
spectators on March 1, and 2. We must also 
suppose that Dr. Lloyd, Higgs, Wass, Currass, 
Coulter, and others, standing in amongst the guilty 
four, and often between them and the articles which 
flew about, all entirely failed to see the wires and 
pulleys or other apparatus necessary to — for instance 
— raise a basin up to the ceiling, and then dash it 
down and break it. And we must further suppose 
that apparatus was removed, and all traces of it on 
the walls and ceilings obliterated, before Mr. 
Podmore inspected the house early in April. And 
lastly we are bound to suggest some motive which 



POLTERGEISTS 249 

would cause these four people to take all this trouble. 
In dealing with one person alone, there is always 
the possibility that the only motive may be the 
morbid desire for notoriety often found in hysterical 
and diseased minds. But four people can hardly be 
supposed to have had a collective and identical 
mania for attracting attention. On the whole I 
venture to think that the charge of conspiracy 
to trick, against all four ; as well as a charge of 
trickery against each individual, would in a court 
of law have resulted in a verdict exonerating the 
accused. 

Another case of which I will now proceed to give 
a summarized account, is, on the information given, 
almost equally difficult to explain : but as we have 
to rely for details mainly on the account of one 
person, himself not an eyewitness of the whole ; and 
as no S.P.R. expert investigated the matter on the 
spot shortly afterwards, the case of Mary the House- 
maid cannot be considered to be as well authenti- 
cated as the Worksop case. 

I have abbreviated the case of Mary the House- 
maid from the full account published in Proceedings 
Volume VII. 

Information concerning the following case was 
furnished by the owner of the house in question : 
his household consisted of four deaf pupils, a lady- 
housekeeper, a cook, and a housemaid : the last named 
had only been in the house a few weeks when the 
events related began to take place. 

Writing on Nov. 1, 1887, Mr. D. stated :—" On 
Friday Sept. 23, (1887), I took my four pupils to a 
circus, my lady housekeeper going too, leaving my 
two servants at home. . . All but myself returned 
at about 5.30, and found the two servants on the 
doorstep, — and explaining that all the bells were 



250 POLTERGEISTS 

ringing violently, no one touching them, and they 
had been doing so almost ever since we left, from 
about half-past two. When I came back I found 
the same state of things ; the servants almost in 
hysterics, and the bells ringing. . . The ringing 
was sudden and very violent — I thought the proba- 
bility was that a cat had got somewhere where 
all the bells were together, had got entangled, and — 
so pulled the bells. I put it down to some such 
cause, and so felt no trouble in leaving the house, 
as I had an evening engagement, my housekeeper 
and I both going out to supper. I left first, and 
when she came to the friend's house she said the last 
thing she had heard was all the bells pealing 
together. . . At about 9.30. . . the cook 
came over to say we must come back as there were 
such dreadful knockings going on in the house. We 
went off at once of course, our friends returning with 
us, being much interested. What had occurred in 
the meanwhile was this : at about 7.30. the knocking 
or hammering began. It sounded like a mallet on 
a wooden floor. The laundry man came in soon 
after it began, and was I believe quite scared ; he 
offered to stay in the house till the cook went for 
her brother, who lives near ; and she fetched him. 
The baker's man also came, and was convinced that 
there was a man in the house hammering, and after 
searching the house and finding nothing he went 
to the police station and told them to send up. As 
soon as she had fetched her brother the cook went 
for us, and her brother, who is I should say an in- 
telligent man, a teacher in a Board-school, was so 
scared by the knocking that he would not stay in 
the house, but went on the doorstep, with the house- 
maid, and stood there till the policemen came, the 
noise going on all the time. When I came back I 



POLTERGEISTS 251 

had the felicity of finding three policemen in the 
house, and the noise had ceased." 

In the course of the night the loud knocking re- 
commenced ; and Mr. D. when he heard it was 
convinced that the housemaid, (whom they all 
suspected and watched), " could not have made such 
a noise with a hammer, even if she had tried." 
Investigations by a bell-hanger "proved that the 
bellwires separated directly they left the bells and 
ran each to its own particular part of the house, and 
thus entirely knocked on the head the cat or rat 
theory ; since there was no point anywhere where 
more than three wires ran at all near one another 
after leaving the bells, where they were in full view. 
It would, I suppose, it there were no other reason to 
preclude the idea, have taken at the very least four 
separate animals ringing in concert." 

Mr. D. gave many more minute details at great 
length ; which certainly seem to prove that trickery 
was impossible. 

Meanwhile the bells continued to ring, and the 
knocks continued to be heard, whilst the movements 
of the pupils, of the cook, and of Mary the house- 
maid, were carefully scrutinised. 

Then for a time, (some weeks apparently), 
quietness reigned ; and Mr. D. went away for a 
week-end, on Saturday, November 5. That same 
evening the bell-ringing re-commenced, and con- 
tinued ; whilst Mrs. K. and the cook were up all 
night with Mary, who was ill and delirious. The 
next day, Sunday, a new phenomenon commenced. 
Chairs were moved by invisible hands ; in one 
instance up a few stairs ; in another down some 
stairs ; the distance traversed being about fifteen 
feet. Various articles left upon chairs were continu- 
ally moved, and placed elsewhere. The bell-hanger 



252 POLTERGEISTS 

was sent for ; also a friend who had promised his 
help in case of need ; but in spite of their presence 
the chairs and other articles continued to be found in 
unexpected places. At 8.30 on Sunday evening they 
sent Mary home : — and all sounds ceased from that 
time ; though she returned to the house next day. 

Mr. D., writing on November 11, said, "I cannot 
help now connecting the occurrence with the house- 
maid ; though perhaps, since there is no direct 
evidence to that effect, it may not appear so to 
others, and an outsider would be able to judge that 
better. Of course I do not want in the least to let 
her know I think this ; though I am afraid she 
begins to suspect it herself at times, as she naturally, 
finding that the things never happen when she is 
away, puts things together, and has said it seems a 
strange thing it should be so. I am, as I have said, 
perfectly certain that she had nothing to do 
voluntarily with the bell ringing ; indeed the more I 
think of it the more I am convinced that it would be 
literally impossible for her to ring the bells as they 
were rung, even apart from any necessity to conceal 
the method of doing so. 

" If any proof of her freedom from complicity were 
needed, her state on the Saturday night would be 
enough to convince anyone. She was delirious all 
night, at least till four in the morning ; she slept in 
Mrs. K's room, and Mrs. K. and the cook sat up with 
her all night, and had often to hold her down ; at 
one time she got up and would have gone out of the 
room had she not been prevented ; she was clearly 
asleep, though most of the time her eyes were wide 
open, I suppose in the ordinary somnambulist state. 
She talked incessantly all night, very much about 
the bells, etc., and in such a way as to show she was 
completely alarmed and terrified at it. She also 



POLTERGEISTS 253 

went through all her week's work, they said, talking 
about everything ; and coming to Sunday she went 
through almost the whole of the Church Service, 
giving the responses, and always leaving time for the 
clergyman to do his part. She sang four hymns all 
through, intoned the Te Deum, went through the 
litany, and started on the (alternate verses of the) 
psalms, but I suppose did not remember them, for 
she did not complete them ; then she left about 
twenty minutes for the sermon ! They thought she 
had gone off to sleep, but she came out with an 
Amen, or something, which showed what had been 
the interval. Then she greeted her friends in her 
ordinary tone of voice ; in fact she acted the whole of 
what she would have done at the time. She did, by 
the way, let out one small secret about her work 
which she would not willingly have done, so that I 
think anyone would be convinced that had she had 
any hand in the production of the phenomena she 
must have given a hint of it. 

" One might have thought she moved the things in a 
somnambulic state ; but they all feel certain that it 
would have been impossible for her to have come 
upstairs when they were perfectly within hearing, and 
almost within sight." Mr. D., in another letter, also 
remarks upon the fact that Mary was standing 
outside the front door, with the cook's brother, for 
some time whilst the bells were ringing, and that he 
was certain she was not and could not be ringing 
them. And whilst the bells were ringing on the 
Sunday night Mrs. K. had the housemaid in the 
dining-room with her while the cook went for the 
bell-hanger, and while they were both in the dining- 
room the bath-room bell rang violently. 

Mrs. K., the housekeeper, wrote as follows : — " Mr. 
D. having read over the account to me of the 



254 POLTERGEISTS 

occurrences which took place in this house, I find that 
they agree with my recollections entirely." April 3rd. 
1890. 

I have termed this the case of Mary the House- 
maid because it seems on the whole most probable 
that she either voluntarily or involuntarily was the 
cause of the disturbances : but it is impossible to 
avoid questioning whether by any possibility the four 
deaf pupils had anything to do with it. If we accept 
the testimony of the bell-hanger concerning the bells, 
as summed up by Mr. D. in the dictum ' four separate 
animals ringing in concert ' would have been needed 
to manipulate the chorus successfully, the thought of 
the four deaf pupils does certainly obtrude itself. 
They appear to have been out of the house on their 
way to the circus when the bells first commenced to 
ring, so if they had any responsibility we must 
suppose that before leaving they set some kind of 
machinery in motion which would start the bells 
ringing shortly afterwards. When the knocking 
commenced later in the evening the pupils were in 
the house, and as no one appears to have investigated 
whether they were really quiescent it is certainly 
possible that one or more of them may have caused 
the sounds, though one would not suppose deaf boys 
likely to trick in this particular way. When chairs 
and other articles were moved about later on, the 
boys were somewhere in the house ; but as these 
movements in some instances took place within a 
known space of time, not exceeding apparently two 
or three minutes, one would suppose it necessary for 
a trickster to be much on the alert to listen for the 
slightest sound of returning footsteps in order to 
avoid detection. 

On the whole I think that though it is not 
impossible the deaf boys, individually or collectively, 



POLTERGEISTS 255 

rang bells, thumped on floors, and moved chairs 
about ; their infirmity makes it highly improbable 
that they could have done so without detection. 
The other possibility that the boys and Mary were in 
collusion, some ringing bells or knocking, whilst 
others were under observation, is rendered im- 
probable by the fact that Mary had only recently 
come to the house. 

Mary the Housemaid might conceivably have 
managed to move the chairs and other articles 
without detection, and she might possibly have 
knocked on the floors ; but it is difficult, if not 
impossible to explain how she could ring the bells. 
For it must be remembered that during the night of 
November 5 — 6, the bell ringing continued whilst 
Mary was in a state of delirium and Mrs. K. and the 
cook were sitting with her. If any bell-hanger knows 
of a clock-work apparatus, so small as to escape 
notice, which can be fixed to a detached system of 
bells, and cause them to ring irregularly, individually 
and collectively, for hours without further attention, 
then we may suppose that Mary had become 
possessed of such an apparatus, and with great 
ingenuity fixed it and wound it up, subsequently 
simulating delirium to divert suspicion. But I think 
it is safe to say that failing the production of such an 
apparatus no judge and jury would consider the 
evidence strong enough to convict Mary on any of 
the counts ; though the verdict as to raps and move- 
ments of chairs might be ' not proven,' the verdict as 
to ringing the bells would I think be an acquittal. 

These two cases may be taken as fairly typical : 
other cases extraordinarily similar could be added 
literally by the dozen. In an article by Mr. Podmore 
in Proceedings Volume XI I, eleven cases of Poltergeists 
are dealt with at length ; in eight of these young 



256 POLTERGEISTS 

girls, and in three young boys appear to have been 
either mediums or tricksters. In most cases they 
are either physically or mentally abnormal, deformed, 
half-witted, hysterical, and in one case subject to 
spontaneous somnambulism. In some instances fire- 
raising occurs. It is undeniable that in many cases 
trickery has been discovered which wholly or in part 
accounted for the happenings. Most often after the 
phenomena had lessened or ceased the child has been 
caught in the act of producing sounds, or throwing 
coals about. But often there seems to have been an 
impression that these sounds, though similar, were 
not identical with those previously heard ; and the 
suggestion has been made that when the supernormal 
sounds ceased, the child, liking the excitement, tried 
to reproduce them, but with indifferent success and 
speedy detection. 

In Proceedings XVIII, Mr. Andrew Lang gave a 
detailed account of the Cideville Poltergeist, based 
on • an authenticated copy of the original documents 
of what was practically a trial for witchcraft before 
the Juge de Paix, of Yerville, in 185 1.' M. Tinel, 
Cure of Cideville, accused a man named Thorel of 
producing (by witchcraft) certain phenomena, which 
took place in his (M. Tinel's) house, in connection 
with two young boys, his pupils. Shovels and tongs 
danced round and then returned quietly to their 
usual places. ' Knives lying on a table would be 
hurled by some occult and irresistible force, and bury 
themselves deep in the walls.' And many other 
astonishing things happened, and were testified to 
by independent witnesses. The judge at the con- 
clusion of the trial pronounced as follows : — ' The 
most clear result of all the evidence is that the cause 
remains unknown.' 

Mr. Lang remarks in characteristic fashion, ' The 



POLTERGEISTS 257 

experienced reader will see that, in the seventeenth 
century, Thorel would have been burned. The 
sceptic will be sure that the boys caused all the 
trouble because they were tired of staying with M. 
Tinel. The claim of (one witness) to have caught 
the younger boy in the act of cheating will be 
accepted, and all the affirmative evidence will be 
dismissed in the usual way. The present writer 
cannot form a conjecture as to how the things were 
done, but they are the ancient, traditional things, 
quae semper, quae ubique, quae ab omnibus. They 
are attested on oath by persons of various ranks, 
ages, and education ; and the evidence is not remote 
from the time of the events. My one wish is that 
somebody would find a girl or boy who will, at least, 
attempt to produce the phenomena in the presence 
of a committee of the Society (for Psychical 
Research). If the things can be done so easily, 
will no young person do them ? ' 

And in his book Dreams and Ghosts, in reference 
to the same subject, Mr. Lang wrote : — • The 
question for the medical faculty is this : Does a 
decided taste for wilful fire-raising often accompany 
exhibitions of dancing furniture and crockery, 
gratuitously given by patients of hysterical tempera- 
ment ? This is quite a normal inquiry. Is there a 
nervous malady of which the symptoms are domestic 
arson and amateur leger-de-main ? The complaint 
if it exist is of very old standing and wide prevalence, 
including Russia, Scotland, New England, France, 
Iceland, Germany, China and Peru.' 

Professor William James wrote in Proceedings 
Volume XII : — 'I am not ashamed to confess that 
in my own case, although my judgment remains 
deliberately suspended, my feeling towards the way 
in which the phenomena of physical mediumship 
R 



258 POLTERGEISTS 

should be approached has received from ghost — and 
disturbance — stories a distinctly charitable lurch. 
Science may keep on saying, ' such things are simply 
impossible ' ; yet so long as the stories multiply in 
different lands, and so few are positively explained 
away, it is bad method to ignore them. They 
should at least accrete for future use. As I glance 
back at my reading of the past few years (reading 
accidental as far as these stories go, since I have 
never followed up the subject), ten cases immediately 
rise to my mind.' Professor James enumerates 
these, they include the Swanland case. 'In all of 
these, if memory doesn't deceive me, material objects 
are said to have been witnessed by many persons 
moving through the air in broad daylight. Often 
the objects are multitudinous — in some instances 
they were stones showered through windows and 
down chimneys. More than once it was noted that 
they fell gently, and touched the ground without 
shock. Apart from the exceptionality of the reputed 
occurrences, their mutual resemblances suggest a 
natural type, and I confess that until these records, 
or others, like them, are positively explained 
away, I cannot feel (in spite of vast amounts of 
detected fraud) as if the case against physical 
rnediumship itself as a freak of nature were definitely 
closed.' 

Professor Sir William Barrett, who has not only 
closely studied records, but has also personally 
investigated Poltergeist cases whilst in actual 
progress, in an article in Proceedings XXV stated, 
' I found that when I mentally asked for a given 
number of raps, no word being spoken, the response 
was given promptly and correctly, and this four times 
in succession, a different number being silently asked 
for in each case. . . The movement of objects is 



POLTERGEISTS 259 

usually quite unlike that due to gravitational or 
other attraction. They slide about, rise in the air, 
move in eccentric paths, sometimes in a leisurely 
manner, often turn round in their career, and usually 
descend quietly without hurting the observers.' 

We may readily allow that the trickiness of a 
morbid and unhealthy child is only limited by its 
mechanical ability, and that Poltergeist phenomena 
consist of the kind of senseless jokes and horseplay 
which a low type of human mind considers to be 
amusing, the things done being on what I may term 
an intellectual level with the young medium or 
trickster. But the crux is that in many cases it 
would seem to be beyond the child's mechanical 
ability to engineer such performances ; an uneducated 
child in a narrow environment, in which it is fairly 
constantly under observation, has no chance to 
attain to perfection in conjuring tricks. 

Have we no alternative then but to supposeTthat 
some low type of disembodied, or unembodied spirit, 
a hooligan spirit in fact, is actually the agent ? I 
venture to suggest that we have such an alternative. 
If it be agreed that the subliminal, or subconscious 
self of each of us has powers which far exceed those 
of the ordinary, conscious self, and that it constantly 
exercises those powers without the ordinary self 
being aware of such exercise taking place, is it 
possible that in a diseased, and perhaps abnormally 
dissociated personality, the subconscious self should 
be able for a short time, (Poltergeist phenomena 
never last long), to exercise abnormal powers over 
material objects, without the conscious self knowing 
anything about it ? 

It has been said that ' faith ' can remove mountains : 
what faith means in this connexion no one seems 
clearly to know, but it is at least legitimate to 



2<5o POLTERGEISTS 

surmise that it is a faculty which would be exercised 
by the subconscious, rather than the ordinary 
self. If so, is it possible that a perverted kind of 
faith can remove cups and saucers, and pieces of 
wood ? 

The experiments of Dr. W. J. Crawford have a 
distinct bearing on the subject. It appears to be 
scientifically as well as morally impossible that Miss 
Kathleen Goligher, the young medium through 
whom various interesting physical phenomena are 
obtained, tricks or cheats in any way. But there is 
nothing which precludes us from supposing that the 
subliminal or subconscious self of the medium is 
a co-operator, or even a sole operator in effecting the 
levitations and raps, though her surface consciousness 
is unaware of the fact. Dr. Crawford tells us that 
Miss K. Goligher takes a great interest in his weigh- 
ing experiments ; it seems to me to be a possible 
hypothesis that subconsciously, (and unconsciously 
as far as her ordinary, or supraliminal self is con- 
cerned), she responds to Dr. Crawford's requests, and 
carries out his orders. I venture to suggest that 
physical phenomena are frequently, if not always, on 
the same intellectual level as that of the medium 
through whom, or by whom, they are produced. An 
illiterate, or mentally deficient medium throws things 
about, and smashes and destroys in a senseless 
manner ; whilst a medium of a high moral and in- 
tellectual level, like Miss Goligher, produces 
phenomena remarkable for intelligent and even 
scientific apprehension of the objects desired to be 
attained. 

I append one other case, referred to above by 
Professor James as the Swanland case, which is 
usually classed with Poltergeist cases ; though in 
several important particulars it radically differs from 



POLTERGEISTS 261 

the ordinary type. It is dealt with at length in 
Proceedings Volume VIII. I give it here in a 
somewhat abbreviated form. 

Letters from Mr. Bristow, a master joiner, to 
Professor Sidgwick. " Stordale, Whittington Road, 
Whalley Range, Manchester, June 27, 1891. Dear 
Sir, I have pleasure in complying with your request 
to be furnished with an account of certain 'Strange 
experiences and eerie phenomena ' which occurred 
years ago at the village of Swanland, some few miles 
from Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire ; and 
which are referred to by Mr. Hebblewhite in his 
letter to you. The building in which the dis- 
turbances took place was of one story, about 10ft. 
high, with three slender tie-beams placed across at 
intervals, and was quite open to the roof, its length 
being about 40ft., and its width 17ft. or 1 8ft. It was 
a joiner's shop, in which I served an apprenticeship 
which had expired some twelve or fifteen months 
prior to the occurrence in question. The building 
was quite detached, being bounded on the one side 
by a country road, whilst the other (in the centre of 
which was the doorway) faced a grass field beyond 
which stood the nearest building in that direction, 
some 500 yards away. Down the centre, commencing 
at one end, were arranged two joiners' benches which, 
placed end to end, extended about half the length of 
the shop, leaving the other half a comparatively open 
space ; a couple of small benches only being fixed to 
the wall, which were at the time unoccupied. 

" On the forenoon of the day when the disturbances 
commenced, I could, from my position at the bench 
near the wall, observe every movement of my two 
fellow workmen in front of me, having at the same 
time an unobstructed view of the doorway and its 
approaches ; when the man on my right hand 



262 POLTERGEISTS 

suddenly started up, saying, ' You fellows had better 
keep your pieces of wood to yourselves and get on 
with your work,' and on our asking him what he 
meant, he replied, ' You know very well what I 
mean ; one of you has pelted this piece of wood at 
me,' picking up at the same time a small piece about 
an inch, or an inch and a half square. The two of us 
protested we had done nothing of the kind. The 
other man I was certain had never for a moment 
ceased working. Neither had I. 

" The subject, being allowed to drop, was soon 
forgotten, when, after the lapse of a very few minutes, 
the second man started up as suddenly as the first 
one had done, exclaiming, ' Now you are at me ; this 
piece,' (pointing to a rough block not larger than a 
matchbox lying at his feet) 'has come at me, and 
there is nobody for it but you,' meaning ot course 
myself. There being two to one I had to bear the 
blame, my emphatic denial notwithstanding. I 
therefore laughingly said, ' You have each had your 
piece, it is my turn next' The words were scarcely 
out of my mouth when a piece came sailing along 
and gave me a gentle dig in the ribs. ' I've got it at 
last,' I said. ' There is something mysterious about 
this which puzzles me beyond measure. Let 
us have a search for the cause,' and, acting at once 
on my suggestion, we set to work and searched the 
nooks and corners, both inside and out, so carefully 
that even a mouse could scarcely have escaped us, 
but with no result save disappointment. The mys- 
terious disturber of our peace remained undiscovered. 

We discussed the situation, getting more and more 
perplexed, and then returned to work. I have said 
that three tie-beams ran across the shop, and on one 
of these beams, just above my head, were piled about 
a dozen window sashes, which by reason of their 



POLTERGEISTS 263 

having lain there for several months, were covered 
with dust and hung with cobwebs. I had barely 
resumed my work when those sashes began to rattle 
and shake as though they would fall to pieces. We 
thought, ' Now we have someone, or something,' and 
getting a small ladder I ran up, to find the dust and 
cobwebs absolutely undisturbed. As I was des- 
cending, and my head being on a level with one of 
the beams, a piece of wood, about the size of two 
fingers, came dancing along, taking about two feet at 
a bound, on a thin board which happened to be laid 
on the beams, making a full stop just at my ear. 
Hastening down, I said to my companions in be- 
wilderment, ' There is something more than a trick 
in this. There is no one but ourselves near the 
place, neither has there been for some time. I am 
half inclined to think there is something of the super- 
natural about it, what say you ? ' One of them 
agreed with me. The other maintained it was only 
a clever trick being played upon us somehow. 

" Whilst this little discussion was going on, the two 
men were standing together some three or four yards 
in front of me, the sceptical one wearing an old tall 
silk hat, when I saw a piece come from the far corner 
of the roof, and knock his hat crown partly in. The 
expression which his suddenly elongated countenance 
wore at that moment was a sight not easily to be 
forgotten. His scepticism seemed to vanish on the 
instant. Occasionally a piece that had but a short 
time previously been cut off, falling to the floor, 
would leap upon the bench and come dancing along 
amongst the tools. I may just say we were unable 
to catch or lay hold of any piece when in motion, 
every attempt to do so was eluded. One piece I 
distinctly remember taking a leap from the bench to 
the trestle about three yards away, from which it 



264 POLTERGEISTS 

took a second one to some other object, finally 
settling down to rest at the end of the shop. An- 
other piece moved in a line straight as the flight of 
an arrow, about a yard from the floor, striking 
noiselessly as a feather the door of a closet at the end 
of the shop in which nails were kept. Anon, a piece 
would move as though borne along on gently heaving 
waves. Again a piece would dash out from the most 
distant part of the roof, in an oblique direction, and 
quietly drop near your feet. 

" Some three or four hours after these disturbances 
began, our foreman, an old Scotchman, named John 
Clark, came to the shop from a new building in 
course of erection, a considerable distance away, 
where he and a number of men were employed, in 
order to bring and explain to me a drawing which 
he had made on a board of a piece of work which he 
wanted me to execute. Full of the all-engrossing 
subject, I at once said, 'John, we have had some 
strange work going on in this shop to-day,' telling 
him what had taken place, at the same time hinting 
at its probable supernatural character. The old man 
looked at me with a serio-comic expression of 
countenance, and said, ' I should have thought you 
had more commonsense than to believe such 
nonsense for a moment. I gave you credit for 
knowing better,' etc., etc. He had just finished 
his little lecture, and was proceeding to point out 
the details of the drawing on the board lying in 
front of us, each having a finger upon it about an 
inch apart, when a piece with a somewhat sharp 
point came dashing from a distant part of the roof, 
and struck into the board betwixt our fingers. The 
hard-headed old Scot stood aghast, and for the 
moment almost speechless, forbearing to make 
further allusion to my common-sense. 



POLTERGEISTS 265 

"The foregoing is a fair specimen of what occurred 
during the first day, and this state of things was 
kept up with more or less frequency during the 
following six weeks, and always in broad daylight. 
Occasionally we would be left in comparative peace 
for a day or two, during which not more than one or 
two manifestations (if I may so term them) would 
take place. We would then have a busy season of 
it, as though making up for lost time. On one of 
these latter occasions, I remember a workman had 
come in from the building, and was engaged in 
working a French window-sill on the bench by my 
side, and seeing a piece about 6 in. square and 1 in. 
thick rise, and after describing about three fourths of 
a circle, say 5ft. in diameter, in its course strike 
the window sill with considerable force just in front 
of him. This was the largest piece I ever saw. 
Generally an ordinary matchbox would represent 
their bulk, although of every variety of shape. I 
preserved some of those mysterious missiles for a 
long time, one of which I remember was the end of 
a ladder stave 3m. or 4m. long. The last piece I 
ever saw was of oak, about 1 in. thick and from 2 in. 
to 2^in. square. It came in the afternoon from a 
distant corner of the roof towards me, and in its 
course described what might be likened to a 
geometrical stair or corkscrew of about i8in. in 
diameter. I may here remark that in every instance, 
without exception, the moving pieces had been cut 
off work in the shop. Never was a piece seen to 
come in at the doorway. 

" The fact of pieces, in number more than I can 
tell, getting from the floor at your feet at the one end 
of the shop, to the farthest point of the roof at the 
other end of the shop, in some mysteriously invisible 
fashion, seemed to be one of the strangest features of 



266 



POLTERGEISTS 



the whole thing. Never in a solitary instance did any 
of our workmen, of whom there were sometimes six 
or eight in the shop ; nor any of our watchful 
visitors who favoured us with their company during 
the course of those six weeks of disturbance, detect 
the slightest indication of anything moving upward 
towards the roof. And yet a piece cut off, and 
falling on the floor would, in spite of the lynx-eyed 
watchers, speedily make its way to the roof at the 
other end, and come dashing down from a point 
where there had been nothing a minute before. As 
the time wore on we became accustomed to the 
thing, and the movement of those blocks of wood, 
which seemed to be instinct with life, and in some 
few instances almost with intelligence, caused but 
little remark. It were easy to multiply instances, 
but those which I have given being fair specimens 
of the whole, may well suffice. In the foregoing 
plain, unvarnished, narrative of facts there may be 
points upon which you may desire further information, 
and I have only to say that I shall be pleased at any 
time to answer any questions, or supply any additional 
information which it may be within my power to 
give. 

" To have any additional light thrown upon, or further 
explanation given of what I deem to have been the 
most remarkable episode in my life, would afford 
unspeakable pleasure to — Dear sir, yours faithfully, 

John Bristow." 

Mr. Myers called on Mr. Bristow, and wrote, 
"Manchester, July 31, 1891. I have just called on 
Mr. Bristow, and he has kindly supplied me with 
some further facts relating to the disturbances at 
Swanland. He has also presented me with his 
manuscript notes, dated 1854. These notes seem 



POLTERGEISTS 267 

wholly concordant with his account sent to Professor 
Sidgwick." Mr. Bristow told Mr. Myers that the 
cause of the disturbances was supposed to be the 
ghost of young John Gray, nephew of John Gray, 
one of the partners in the business ; the other being 
William Habbershaw. Young John Gray died of 
consumption, soon after the term of his apprentice- 
ship to his uncle had terminated. His father, a 
farmer, had previously died a bankrupt. " Some 
few weeks before the disturbances began, rumour 
said that his father's creditors had not received all 
the money which ought to have been paid to them, 
and that his uncle was responsible for this. Mr. 
Bristow had been told on good authority that 
young John Gray's last request had been that his 
uncle would repay the money due to his, (young 
John Gray's) father's creditors. This, I understood, 
the elder John Gray did not at once do. I can 
personally vouch for his excessive terror when the 
disturbances began. One day especially, he took 
me with him driving to a job a couple of miles or so 
from our workshop, and began to talk to me about 
the phenomena, as though he wished to get me to 
put them down to some natural cause. His manner 
was that of a man almost petrified with terror. I felt 
convinced that he had had disturbances of which we 
knew nothing. 

" He repaid the money — as was said — and the 
disturbances at once ceased. Of oourse I cannot 
vouch at first hand for the repayment of the money, 
but on one point I can speak from observation. 
Before the disturbances began there was no tomb- 
stone to young John Gray. When they began the 
uncle put one up in North Ferriby churchyard, 
which I suppose is there now." 

Mr. Bristow mentioned the names of one or two 



268 POLTERGEISTS 

men who might possibly be still living at Swanland, 
who were witnesses of the disturbances : and on 
September 29, 1891, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, and Miss 
E. W. Allen, visited the neighbourhood, and made 
the following report, the same day : — 

" We first visited the churchyard of North Ferriby, 
in order to discover the tombstone of John Gray. 
We found two tombstones which bear on our case, 
one to the memory of Stephen Gray, died August, 
1827, aged 27, and his wife, who died in 1842 ; and 
to his son, John Gray, who died, aged 22, on January 
5th, 1849. The other, exactly similar, was to the 
memory of John Gray, died 185 1, aged 48, and his 
wife Anne, wno died 1854, aged 45. 

'■ We then went to Swanland, and first addressed 
ourselves to an elderly blacksmith who was looking 
out of his shop, and said we were in search of John 
Turner, who, we believed, could tell us about some 
wonderful occurrences of pieces of wood flying about 
the shop, etc. John Turner had been dead some 
years, it appears ; but our blacksmith remembered 
hearing about the thing, and thought some of the old 
people could tell us about it. He called an old 
cobbler, Edward Harper, who lived a few doors off, 
who had not personally seen anything, but remem- 
bered the affair well, and the sensation it caused, 
people coming over from Hull to see the place. He 
knew John Bristow, and was interested in hearing of 
him, and we gathered that Mr. Bristow had been both 
liked and respected in the place. Harper remembered 
also how John Crowther had interested himself in the 
thing, and after being sceptical had become convinced 
of its mysterious character. But John Crowther is 
now dead, and Harper could not think of anyone now 
alive who had actually seen the movements going on, 
except " Tommy Andrews." Harper's account of 



POLTERGEISTS 269 

what went on was graphic, and corresponded well 
with Mr. Bristow's, except that he increased the size 
of the pieces of wood to the size of a man's head. 
The belief that the disturbances arose from wishes of 
John Gray's respecting money, being unfulfilled by 
old John Gray, was evidently the current belief in the 
village at the time. 

" We then went to see Thomas Andrews — an old 
man, rheumatic, and retired from work. He im- 
pressed us as a clever, sensible sort of man. He has 
a very expressive face, and I can quite imagine his 
being the man ' the expression of whose elongated 
countenance ' Mr. Bristow speaks of. Miss Allen 
remembers that Harper spoke of Andrews' hat being 
knocked in by one of the pieces of wood, but we 
neglected to ask him about this, nor did I inquire of 
him about specific phenomena mentioned by Mr. 
Bristow, but rather tried to draw out his own inde- 
pendent account of things. He told us that the 
pieces of wood certainly did fly about for the space 
of five or six weeks ; that he was working in the shop 
at the time, and believed he was one of the first to 
see them, that he believed it to be a trick at first. I 
asked whether he was sure it was not a trick ; and he 
said he was sure, because they searched, and no one 
could have played it, and because the pieces of wood 
could not have taken the course they did had they 
been thrown. To illustrate this he made us hold his 
stick, and showed how a piece would come along and 
go round the stick as it were, and ' no one could 
throw like that' Asked as to explanations, said that 
some gave one and some another — but the only 
one we got out of him was the one about John Gray 
junior's unfulfilled wishes, and the tombstone, which 
he said was afterwards put up. This was his own 
belief as to the explanation ; but he said that John 



270 POLTERGEISTS 

Gray, senior, when asked about it, shuffled the matter. 

" The only specific incident I remember his men- 
tioning was about the Scotch foreman and the piece 
that came down as he was looking at the plan. 

" Altogether, all we saw and heard went to confirm 
Mr. Bristow's account, except that the tombstone, 
which Mr. Andrews also said had been put up to John 
Gray junior after the disturbances, was really put up 
to his father and mother as well ; and we cannot say 
whether John Gray senior really erected it to the 
whole family then, or whether he added the name of 
the young man then, which led to the rumour. 

" Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick. 
" Eleanor Wardle Allen. 

" P.S. October ist. — I have just been looking 
through Mr. Bristow's rough notes, and see that 
Thomas Andrews was the man who, according to him, 
had his hat knocked in. Miss Allen did not know 
this, so that the fact of Edward Harper, according 
to her recollection, remembering that Andrews was 
said to have had his hat knocked in, must be regarded 
as a confirmation of Mr. Bristow's account. It is also 
in Mr. Bristow's favour that a witness he did not refer 
us to, T. Andrews, should confirm him as he did. 

E. M. S." 

As regards the point raised by Mrs. Sidgwick as 
to the age of the tombstones, I may remark that there 
are fashions in tombstones, as may be noted in any 
country churchyard, and it is most improbable that a 
tombstone which had been erected when the first 
interment took place in 1827 would be 'exactly 
similar ' in form to one which could not have been 
erected before 185 1. The similarity suggests that 
'young John Gray' was buried with his father and 



POLTERGEISTS 271 

mother in a tombstoneless grave; his uncle, as Mr. 
Bristow stated, erecting the stone after the disturb- 
ances in the workshop, and that the names of all the 
three persons buried therein were engraved thereon. 
Very shortly afterwards the uncle, ' old John Gray,' 
died, and it would be perfectly natural for an exactly 
similar tombstone to be erected over his grave. 

I have said that the Swanland case differs in many 
respects from the ordinary type of Poltergeist case ; 
in particular it must be noted that though as usual 
a young person is the supposed originator, the youth 
commonly supposed in the neighbourhood to be 
causing the disturbances in the workshop, was not 
alive in the flesh, though the place of his supposed 
post mortem activities was the workshop in which he 
had served his apprenticeship, and with which he was 
consequently closely connected. If physical 
phenomena are caused by semi-physical influences 
from the medium ; and if, as is thought by many, a 
personal and perhaps semi-physical influence is left 
by each one of us in our former abodes, then 
perhaps enough of the semi-physical personality of 
young John Gray remained in the workshop to serve 
his disembodied spirit in moving pieces of wood 
about, and so calling attention to the non-fulfilment 
of his dying request. 



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